Pickled

Pickled

Most people either love pickles or hate them. I used to hate them, convinced they highjacked any sandwich: a coup of the main taste. Then, I visited a friend in Warsaw who let me try her grandmother's pickles. Reluctant at first but not wanting to be rude, I cut a tiny piece off one and gave it up to my inner palate. Not only did it turn out to be the best pickle I had ever had, but it didn't make me pucker. Her grandmother's pickles were tangy, yet a slight sweetness lingered in my mouth after chewing them. My friend explained that pickles were an important food for her grandmother and many Polish people during WW2...it was pretty much the only source of vitamins they had, seeing as how they couldn't get fruit and most vegetables were scarce as well.

Well, that was it: my pickle views did a 360. I realized that I didn't like most pickles (or any pickled vegetable) because of their too vinegary, unnatural taste.  I have tried other "natural" pickles since (the last from a popular pickle stand in St. Augustine selling "pickles on a stick") and have never been let down. But I will not touch the "regular" store-bought kind, and can be caught scraping them off a burger.

Do you have a pickle preference?

If you're not a pickle lover, let me just say before you push them away that the Polish were spot on: they are full of vitamins A, K, and C. Not only that, but I have found out recently that they are good for your gut. Like all fermented foods, they help in digestion because they are full of the good bacteria called probiotics. (Yay good bacteria!)

 Pickles have a bad rap because of their entangled fermented concoction, leading to the idiom "to be in a pickle". And in thinking about this phrase recently, I let my imagination run wild in pickle land. I realized that I have been pickled...a bit spiced but mostly ready for food for thought after sitting in my own salts for so long. What do I mean? I mean the time has come to take my preserves off the shelf and open them up to be tasted. I have been building up my juices for so long, trying to decide if I liked the taste or not.

And so, as a creative dedication to the pickle and myself, I offer you:

The Pickle Sonnet

I have to say that I'm in a pickle

my juices marinating in a jar 

so long my skin has started to prickle,

stuck to the sucked side of a long cigar.

You see, I am trying to just be me.

My life vine has been stretched into new sprouts,

But some cucumbers were brined while at sea

Marinating in a bottle of doubts.

But the jar is made from my own design

And my pickles can be dried in the sun.

Truly, those crispy cucumbers were mine!

And who had closed the lid? I was the one!!

    As long as I pucker in vinegar

    My best bet it to leave the lid ajar.

Photo:  <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/luiza_83-7899109/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=6506913">Luiza Kawala</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=6506913">Pixabay</a>

Text: Kristen Mastromarchi