Colleen's Posterous

or Pickling is an Ancient Art of Preserving Food

I helped the church ladies today in making batches of pickles, dill and bread-n-butter types. We used Kirby cucumbers 'cause they're supposed to be the best cuke for pickling.

Photos below show some of the different stages of the process. The dill pickles had vinegar and pickling spice (with fresh dill and garlic bits in the jars) and the bread-n-butter pickles had onions and sugar in addition ot vinegar (these also have tumeric as one of the spices, who knew?) Tumeric makes the pickle juice sort of yellow.

Between the boiling of vinegar and chopping of onions, the place was smelling pickl-y.

I learned a lot but didn't get the recipe specifics, 'cause they had me too busy working.

Luckily, there's lots of pickling recipes online. May try some at home!

Below photos are the dill pickles.