Pickling Harmonie

by Sally Singingtree August 2017

It’s pickling season and this year I’ve discovered a variety of cucumber that makes the best dill pickles I’ve ever tasted. I grow some cucumbers in my garden and buy the rest from the local farmer’s market. Most cucumber plants are garden devas— demanding constant attention. One afternoon they preen with lush big leaves, a multitude of yellow blossoms, and verdant green baby cucumbers. Yet for all that glory, by the very next morning the foliage can look wretched—covered with unsightly powdery mildew or blotches of scab. Organic treatment options are usually short lived and require frequent application. This year one of the farmers at the Wednesday market introduced me to “harmonie” cucumbers —intrepid growers that deliver without all the ups and downs. The 1

dark green skin is tender and not too thick, the inner pulp flavorful, not bitter, the seeds are small and the plants are healthy and beautiful day in and out, thriving on drip irrigation, lots of sunshine and fertile soil. I enjoy making my own pickles—it’s something I took up after being inspired by Aunt Rose’s pickles. I started out using the hot water bath, vinegar based method, the same process my aunt used. Recently I switched to the ancient brine fermentation process which relies on beneficial yeast and bacteria to preserve cucumbers by transforming them into pickles. It’s a simple technique. The night before you plan to pickle, boil up half a gallon of filtered water into which you dissolve 3 Tablespoons of salt; let it cool overnight. The next day gather the cucumbers, lots of dill, garlic, peppercorns and a few grape leaves. Once everything is assembled, carefully pack a big pickling crock with all the loose ingredients, and then pour the brine solution over everything. The mixture needs to stay submerged beneath the surface of the brine—it’s an anaerobic fermentation process — so weight it down with a heavy object (I use a ceramic stone) and place a cover over the crock. The fermentation process will take a week or two.

As the cukes soak, mold, scum (sometimes known as bloom) and weird looking bubbles form on top of the brine. This stuff is kinda scary looking, similar to the stuff that grows on leftovers at the back of the refrigerator, but this stuff won’t hurt you. Kitchen germ-o-phobes and refrigeration police would

Johnny’s Seeds.http://www.johnnyseeds.com/vegetables/cucumbers/pickling-cucumbers/1harmonie-f1-cucumber-seed-2564.html

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probably freak out at this point if they looked into the brew, but humans have been preserving vegetables this way for thousands of years. Every day or so one needs to skim it off. After about 5-7 days soaking in the brine, the pickles are ready to taste. The first time I did this I half thought I might die, but I risked it anyway. I took a teeny bite, told my husband so he’d know what to tell the paramedics if necessary, and waited to see if I survived until the next morning. I woke up feeling great and ready to take a bigger bite of the pickles in process.

They were almost ready, just needed another day or two. Once the pickles reached the still-crunchy, flavorful place I prefer, it was time to pack them into wide-mouth quart Mason jars and store them in the fridge. We enjoyed eating them all winter long. The nutritional health benefits of these pickles is in the probiotics, a term meaning “for life”. These microorganisms form during the long soak in the brine. Probiotics have very beneficial properties for the intestinal flora. Even before science knew anything about probiotics, our distant forebears knew that eating a little sauerkraut, chutney, or a few pickle slices with a meal helped to keep the gut happy.

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Ingredients & Equipment • “harmonie” cucumbers• grape leaves• garlic• dill • 1/2 gallon water + 3 Tbsp. salt

• fermentation crock

Deirdre Rawlings provides the following description:

“Fermentation happens when microorganisms (natural bacteria and some yeasts) feed on the sugar and starch in food, converting them into lactic acid in a process known as lacto-fermentation… Lacto-fermentation creates beneficial bacteria, enzymes, vitamins, and various strains of probiotics (live beneficial microorganisms). An added benefit just happens to be an increased shelf life of food.”

Rawlings, Deirdre Ph.D.,N.D. Fermented Foods for Health. Beverly, MA: Fair Winds Press, 2013, p. 6.

A few Saturdays ago, as I was packing up a late summer pickle batch, deadly violence was taking place in Charlottesville, Virginia. The KKK, neo-Nazis and alt-right neo-fascists were marching to protest the planned removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee. Human rights counter-demonstrators had gathered as well—mostly groups and individuals practicing nonviolence but they were joined by antifa groups, ready to physically defend themselves and others from the aggressive violence of white supremacists. The situation was volatile and turning deadly in an already alarming political climate. I was getting “breaking news alerts” on my i-phone every few minutes. The vitriol and brazen incitement to violence and intimidation that went on that day and that continues is profoundly perturbing to me; I had mistakenly assumed that our country’s old wounds were more healed than they are. I wonder, how will we ever come to a place of congruence where we can all live together amicably in a dynamic state of harmony among all the different voices? Sometimes the discrepancy between my hope and what I hear on the news feels like it’s starting to pickle my brain! But seriously, sometimes it helps to clarify a situation by noticing the partial similarities between two different processes. So, viewing our current socio-political situation via the analogy of fermentation and probiotics, what can we discern? Are there any correspondences between the fermenting process and the social unrest thats been brewing in our country for a very long time? Just as mold and scum (or bloom) inevitably form on top of the brine during the early stages of transforming raw vegetables into fermented food, so to do unsavory human elements break forth during times of change and disruption of historical norms. Unfortunately, as we are seeing now, things often get dangerous before they (hopefully) improve. What we previously assumed was unshakable progress in the political/social/community environment now seems threatened. The effect of changing times upon those who feel left behind creates a backlash of resentment, seething anger, bigotry and a longing to return to a sugar-coated versions of an idealized past time. Yet most of us know that it’s impossible to go back to a former time; the power of change resides in the conditions of the “here and now”. So, as we move on, it’s important to bring forward the wisdom gained from lessons learned the hard way in former times. Absorbing the lessons of history isn’t nostalgia, it’s the only way we can avoid repeating similar tragic mistakes. During the Civil War General Lee authorized and personally committed despicable violence, torture and other hateful actions towards African

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Americans. Lee and most other confederates were unable to recognize that skin color is unrelated to human value, that all people are worthy of justice and compassion, and that torture, lynching and splitting families apart are depraved actions which only intensify the problems. After defeat of the Confederacy, after Jim Crow, after government mandated integration, after a black man was elected president of the United States— these attitudes festered in the psyches of many angry, fearful people who felt deprived of their glory days as top dogs. This is the legacy that the statues of General Lee venerate. From another vantage point, the leaders of the Confederacy provided valuable lessons about what doesn’t work. Mistakes are an invaluable part of human advancement. Edison had many failures before he invented the incandescent light bulb. We don't need to build monuments to mistakes; but to create a better future we must learn from them. Perhaps those empty pedestals where statues of confederate heroes once stood could portray newly sculpted figures showing humanity’s hard won progress along with humanity's ongoing ability to birth inspiring solutions. Wouldn’t it be great if our public places were decorated with images of people coming together to work towards a future that holds pervasive social justice, equal opportunity and satisfying lives for all? So, getting back to our analogy between fermentation and the current social/political unrest— what life-affirming benefits may be aborning underneath all the disagreements, threats, and violence that we see rising to the surface of things? Just as probiotics are formed underneath the scum and mold of my vegetable ferment, I believe that love and compassion will emerge for many of those who now want only disruption. Once things have pickled long enough, I believe that we will begin to see more compassionate, loving and wise grassroots action and public policy.Compassion is not the same thing as pity; it’s putting ourselves in another’s shoes and beginning to feel what that must be like. Love isn’t romantic or sentimental; rather it’s seeing and knowing with the intelligence of a caring, wise heart. Only when we’ve stewed around in the ferment long enough to realize that hating and killing doesn’t bring about anything except more wounding, reciprocal violence and fear do we realize that what we really want is harmony instead of dissonance, cooperation rather than provocation. Clearly, the process we are in is frightening but there is also cause for hope. While I can’t possibly connect all the dots, nonetheless I have faith that what is currently brewing in this alchemical mix of raw betrayal, trauma, confusion, and demagoguery are eventual developments that will bring healing transformation so that people in our land can live together in cooperative ways.

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Granted it would be a help if the top leadership had some sort of moral compass instead of just looking for the ego gratification of making deals, any deals. Without a doubt, we are in something of a pickle. Fermenting raw ingredients is a messy, uncertain process. In the meantime, we can aspire to contribute compassion, wisdom, and loving kindness into the world around us. We can draw down deeper than our tendency to rant or blame or retreat and choose to be a calm presence in the midst of everything. Individually and collectively an evolution of consciousness is in the works. I have faith that the healing factors for digesting and transmuting past evil and hate are beginning to exert some influence, even if we can’t see it yet. How long will it take? There’s no timetable, and not everyone will choose to grow and heal; but many will undergo positive changes. Transformation is possible. I recall the story of John Newton, self proclaimed wretch, who felt the healing power of grace carry him into a fresh start. He turned away from his life as captain of a slave trading ship and chose instead to be an abolitionist, helping to bring about the end of the slave trade in England. Deep within the briny slosh of confusion and suffering of our present time something else is happening. Beneficial strands of transmutation we can’t taste, see or feel are beginning to form. At some point in the not so distant future we will step into better ways of living cooperatively with each other. In the meantime we are identifying what needs to be skimmed off. And underneath the slime, we are pickling harmony.

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