Creator: Chef Smith
July: National Pickle Month
This Holiday is set aside for people to appreciate the pickle. It doesn't matter if it's a sweet pickle or a dill pickle, most of us love pickles in one form or the other. During this month make it a point to add more pickles in your diet and familiarize yourself with all the different ways pickles can be used in our daily menu or in cooking. We already know how popular and traditional it is to serve a pickle along side a sandwich for lunch so make this month fun by planning more juicy pickles on your plate. Maybe you would like to learn to go cucumbers so you could can your very own homemade pickles. It doesn't matter how you celebrate National Pickle Month at all, just as long as you do!
A pickled cucumber, most often simply called a pickle in the United States and Canada, is a cucumber that has been pickled in a brine, vinegar, or other solutions and left to ferment for a period of time.
The pickling process was known to the Ancient Greeks. Aristotle is reported to have praised pickled cucumbers for their healing effects. Julius Caesar's soldiers ate pickled cucumbers as health aids; many other brine-soaked foods were part of daily life in Ancient Rome. Cucumber pickling remained widespread across the Levant and Maghreb regions, where it is still very popular today.
Pickled cucumbers became popular in the United States due to the influence of the cuisine of Central and Eastern European immigrants.
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There are several Types of Pickles
Gherkin
A gherkin is not only a pickle of a certain size but also a particular species of cucumber: the West Indian or Burr cucumber, which produces a somewhat smaller fruit than the garden cucumber. Standard pickles are made from the West Indian cucumber, but the term gherkin has become loosely used as any small cucumber pickled in a sweet vinegar brine, regardless of the variety of cucumber used.
Kosher dill
A "kosher" dill pickle is usually not kosher in the sense that it has been prepared under rabbinical supervision, which would ensure that no non-kosher ingredients were used, and that no utensil in contact with the pickles had ever been in contact with food that was not kosher. Rather, it is a pickle made in the traditional manner of Jewish New York City pickle makers, with generous addition of garlic to the brine.
Polish
Polish style pickled cucumbers are a type of pickled cucumber developed in the northern parts of Europe and have been exported worldwide and are found in the cuisines of many countries. As opposed to some other varieties of pickled cucumbers, they are prepared using the traditional process of natural fermentation in a salty brine which makes them grow sour. There is no vinegar used in the brine of a Polish-style pickled cucumber. They do not, however, keep as long as cucumbers pickled with vinegar. In Poland they are traditionally served as a side dish to vodka.
Lime
Lime pickles are soaked in lime rather than in a salt brine. Vinegar and sugar are often added after the 24-hour soak in lime, along with pickling spices, although this is done more to enhance flavor than as a preservative.
Bread and butter
Bread-and-butter pickles are sweeter in flavor than dill pickles, having a high concentration of sugar added to the brine. Rather than being served alongside a sandwich, they are more often used in fully-flavored sandwiches, such as hamburgers, or used in potato salad.
Swedish and Danish
Swedish pickled cucumbers are thinly sliced, mixed with salt and pressed to drain some water from the cucumber slices. Afterwards placed in a jar with a sour-sweet brine of vinegar, salt, sugar, pepper and parsley.
Danish cucumber salad is similar, but the cucumbers are not pressed and the brine doesn't have parsley. The cucumber salad accompanies meat dishes, especially a roasted chicken dish, and is used on Danish hot dogs.
Kool-Aid Pickles (a.k.a. "Koolickles")
Kool-Aid pickles (considered a delicacy in parts of the Southern United States) are created by soaking dill pickles in a mixture of Kool-Aid and pickle brine.
Nutrition
Much like sauerkraut (also technically a pickle), pickled cucumbers are rich in vitamin C. Even though pickled cucumbers have been put through the pickling process, they are still considered a fruit.
Serving
In the United States, pickles are often served as a "side" to various lunches in the form of a "pickle spear", which is a pickled cucumber cut length-wise into quarters or sixths. The pickle may be used as a condiment on a hamburger or other sandwich (usually in slice form), or to a sausage or hot dog in chopped form as pickle relish. A pickle slice is commonly referred to as a 'chip'.
Soured cucumbers are commonly used in a variety of dishes — for example, pickle-stuffed meatloaf, potato salad or chicken salad — or consumed alone as an appetizer.
Pickles have also been introduced in fried form, either deep-fried plain, or with a breading surrounding the spear.
Pickle Fun Facts
The mighty pickle is over 4,000 years old.
The pickle was brought to the New World by Christopher Columbus.
Like pickles? So did George Washington, John Adams and Dolly Madison.
Cleopatra claimed pickles contributed to her beauty.
Americans eat about nine pounds of pickles a year.
Dill pickles are the most popular.
Pickles are mentioned at least twice in the Bible.
If all of the pickles consumed each year were placed end to end, they would reach the moon and back 8.25 times.
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