“Oh, I’ll have my pickles with the foie.” While delis forever built reputations on the accoutrement, fine dining rooms didn’t necessarily make pickles the fixings fixture they are now.  Walk into Barbacco in San Francisco and admire the counter-covering runway show of colorful pickles in glass vessels. Concurrent with the rise of sandwiches and street food, the standard wax-paper-segregated, faded, and slightly wilted spears have been reinvented in all colors, shapes, sizes, textures and flavors.  They sit prettily on fine white china and intentionally distressed cutting boards, showing off in rustic mason jars and delicate porcelain ramekins.  Everything from sea beans to sweet corn to Nesbit grapes are pickling in kitchens across the region, adding punch to salads, soufflés, seafood, meats and desserts.

Pickling is not a new fad.  As one of the most ancient preservation techniques, pickling evolved in various cultures as a way to access vegetables and their nutrients long after their peaks of season.  As Linda Ziedrich, author of The Joy of Pickling puts it, “…few must survive the winter on preserved foods, [but] pickles still retain their power of enticement.”  The technique was in practice starting as early as 1000 BC in the Middle East, where pickles are still a given, three meals a day. Throughout Asia, a customary pickle-honoring diet evolved with kimchi, ginger and radish, while African cultures relish the benefits of fermented food in garri and injera. Only over the past few years have American palates become more accepting of these varieties of pickles, but diners have been enjoying

Pickling is not a new fad.  As one of the most ancient preservation techniques, pickling evolved in various cultures as a way to access vegetables and their nutrients long after their peaks of season.  As Linda Ziedrich, author of The Joy of Pickling puts it, “…few must survive the winter on preserved foods, [but] pickles still retain their power of enticement.”  The technique was in practice starting as early as 1000 BC in the Middle East, where pickles are still a given, three meals a day. Throughout Asia, a customary pickle-honoring diet evolved with kimchi, ginger and radish, while African cultures relish the benefits of fermented food in garri and injera. Only over the past few years have American palates become more accepting of these varieties of pickles, but diners have been enjoying European accoutrements such as krauts, cornichons and olives for decades.

There are two main methods of pickling. The primary technique uses vinegar or some form of acid to create “fresh pickles,” (i.e. standard dill) while the less common preparation is done with salt to make “fermented pickles,” (i.e. sauerkraut). Either preparation usually features both key agents. Each offers health benefits: the fresh pickles maintain some of the produc’s nutrients, while the probiotic growth in the fermented variety is particularly valuable.

Brooke Moen, Berkeley based licensed acupuncturist and Chinese herbalist, explains that like a healthy garden, your gut requires a symbiotic ecosystem to flourish and
fermented foods’ probiotics help maintain the garden’s balance.  So whether it is the kraut, fermenting on your shelf, or the pickles you ate at lunch, the good bacteria from probiotics are keeping the bad bacteria from causing harm.  San Francisco’s Chef Douglas Monsalud of super-lauded-sandwich-haven Kitchenette SF, Heart art and wine bar and LRE (Living Room Events,) considers this when pickle-loading his menus, citing inspirations from Michael Pollan and a rising public interest in the benefits of lacto-fermented foods.

Getting into pickles

To refresh their menus, chefs are reviving aging and fermenting practices, given their enduring popularity.  Take the beet salad – it may not be groundbreaking, but diners gravitated towards the dish, earning its place on the menu as a staple. Copley’s Executive Chef Andrew Manion Copley, recognizes that such guest-adored dishes are important to offer; so in order to keep the menu interesting, he likes to revitalize crowd favorites.  In his Palm Springs restaurant, he adds lightly brine-poached, red wine stained Asian pears, hit with star anise, fresh chilies, ginger and cinnamon stick to his beet and goat cheese salad.  Chef Trey Foshee of La Jolla’s refined, cove-set California Modern agrees and chooses to use different treatments of beets so that blanched, shaved and pickled variations all integrate into thoughtful layers of depth, flavor and texture, while maintaining a sense of simplicity.

There is much more to the trend than just trying to avoid boredom in the kitchen, though. Owner Yaron Milgrom and Chef Jake Des Voignes of recently opened Local Mission Eatery in San Francisco rationalize, “First, they [pickles] are delicious.  Second, because it is a preserving method, they are a great way to return to a taste of season past.”  Continuing, they summarize that “in general, there is a return to an old world, artisanal, DIY, peasant sensibility which we love.” Monsalud also relates the pickling trend to the overarching fascination with homesteading, a general harkening back to “pre-packaged” days, which San Francisco-praised Comstock Saloon Chef Carlo Espinas similarly echoes. 

It makes sense: when produce is in season – at peak flavor and in sweet, cheap abundance – why not gather it and make it last?  Those fleeting favorites are especially good candidates; Monsalud shares, “figs – they have a short life, so pickle, save them and serve them on porchetta long after their season is over.   It’s a nostalgic look at the recent past.”  The nutrients usually remain undiminished and sometimes even increase.  They’re a good way to get your daily recommended. 

Practicality and health perks may not be the principal reasons culinary masters are hopping on the pickle wagon, but the versatility and taste of house-made pickles will always be in fashion, their popularity undeniably climbing in the past year.  Pickles add “an accent of flavor and texture, another dimension enhancing the sensory experience,” explains Chef Bradley Ogden of his namesake restaurant in Las Vegas, among many others. His all seasons’ holiday cookbook touching on some of these principles will release in Fall of 2011.

Foshee embraces how pickles can create a complex character to a dish, and  he likes to use the sours as a way to add non-obvious acid; it’s all about balancing flavors, and  they add “just a bit of bite” in that game.

Similarly, Espinas integrates pickles into dishes in order to awaken the palate before guests imbibe Comstock’s notable cocktails and pre-refrigeration period-inspired menu. He uses pickled grapes in a Waldorf salad made with escarole hearts, spiced walnuts, blue cheese and quince dressing. “The grapes are a bright sharp to the round rich blue,” Espinas explains.  From a chef’s perspective, they also offer a unique flavor to a dish: time.  Because pickles require time, they add age and depth to a fresh composition.

Copley adds, “there’s only so much you can do to vegetables;” pickling is one more flavor-play medium. 

In experimenting with pickling, chefs have ventured far from the predictable cucumber.  There are places like Kitchenette and Heart, Comstock, Local and Serpentine, among many others that offer a house pickle plate.  Served with cured meats, country bread or spiced yogurt, bright colors – purples, orange, pinks, and greens – and equally luminous flavors are a commonality among  these sharing and discussion-inspiring crowd pleasers.

At Local Mission Eatery, a daily changing combination featuring the likes of Black Twig apples, Watermelon radishes, baby fennel, carrots and baby green cherry tomatoes takes center stage on the menu. At Heart, their popular pickle plate introduces diners to curried vinegar Brussels sprouts, locally foraged and in-house pickled sea beans and a host of other triumphant experiments.  Monsalud offers diners an adventure, “Don’t just give them a cornichon,” he says. 

Not to say that good old fashioned dills are a bad idea – a crowd favorite at Ogden’s Root 246, for instance, will always be the burger, largely for its house-made pickles – but it’s important to elaborate for the cure-craving public. Ogden uses pickles to play with sweet and savory: pickled persimmons atop seared scallops, Maytag blue cheese soufflé with sweet-sour roasted pear and candied or pickled gypsy peppers in desserts such as plum tart.

Copley’s personal favorite is pickled mussels, which get white wine vinegar, balsamic or chili sauce accompanied by either red onion or sweet corn and always a side of cold beers.  He also recognizes that in some dishes, pickles might not be everyone’s taste, so he often separates the
accompaniment in a ramekin so that “if they don’t like it, you haven’t spoiled their meal.”  Guests do tend to come around though.  At Comstock, the “Hangtown toast” has glorified the once inauspicious pickled egg, marrying their innate richness with brininess, slicing them over artisanal toast and dressing them with oyster vinaigrette and bacon, continuing to bring guests back many times.

Pickled pink

It is no surprise that the ancient art of pickling has picked up speed in the past few years. The procedure of pickling produce not only yields a delicious, multipurpose product, but the process can be quite fun.  When wagering where to start, Copley urges, “Get out to the market, get inspired and bring it home.”

Monsalud agrees; seasonal items, in abundance, are cheap and ripe for pickling.  In order to determine the brine or treatment, he suggests thinking ahead to what purpose the pickle might serve.  For example, his star anise and ginger watermelon rind is a great complement for soy and is paired with shiso-soy marinated pork belly.

Foshee supports unabashed experimentation: “Pickle anything!” He likes using sous vide methods to keep the crunch but add the layers of flavor.

This system allows him to take a high water-content, delicate ingredient like watermelon, pickle it, and reunite it with its similarly pickled rinds in an interesting interplay that sets off a salad or crudo brilliantly.  Ogden also supports testing the flavor waters, using alternate vinegars, spices and aromatics.  Alternating containers is another way to diversify effects.  Monsalud uses harsh crocks (mostly for German style krauts) and jars of all kinds in his pickle practice.

Barrel tasting

When pickling, there are a number of variables – temperature, time, container, space, vinegar or salt
content – and always room to go a little wrong. Trial and error is almost implicit. “You’re bound to have failures; keep trying,” Espinas encourages.  He adds that it’s hard to find flavor and texture consistency, especially with the fermented variety. 

Vinegar pickles have challenges too.  Milgrom advises, “Use quality vinegar.  The solution should pickle the product without canceling out the product’s natural flavor.”

Once the vegetables have sat in the brine too long, Copley cautions, no amount of sugar can bring them back.  Ogden also warns that a brine that is too hot can over-blanch and kill some of the natural flavors and nutrients. Keep trying. 

“There are innumerable recipes and variations” Monsalud points out, “if a few work, [and if stored
properly] you can have a great ingredient that lasts up to six months to a year.”

Chefs vary on what comprises a basic brine, but a loose go-to involves (often in equal parts) water, sugar and vinegar (often rice, champagne or white wine). Salt, along with any medley of thyme, mustard seed, bay, celery seed, chilies, ginger, garlic, pepper corns and other spices also joins the party.  For dark fruit, Espinas likes to use a red wine-based brine, seasoned with cloves, allspice and nutmeg.

With endless recipes and uses, the current pickle-makeover invites creativity, promotes health and promises flavor.  There’s a reason delis have made a names off this sandwich-wingman.  Viva la pickle revolution!