Pickles

A perfectly pocket-sized pickle primer covering everything sour, from German sauerkraut to kosher dills to Latin American ceviche. --CJ Lotz Garden & Gun Well researched, nicely illustrated, and embracing. --CJ Lotz Petits Propos Culinaires Who doesn't love a pickle? Low in calories and packed with flavour, they simply make any meal yummier. A book to relish, this tiny tome chronicles the global rise of the humble pickle, which fuelled workers who built China's Great Wall, flew to space (with a Korean who brought kimchi along for the rocket ride) and is now touted as a cure-all for hangovers. --CJ Lotz Quarterly Review of Biology Pickles aren't simple, or so one learns after consuming just a few pages of Pickles. . . . There are quick pickles, pickle pickles and fermented pickles, not to mention dry salting and dry pickling with soybean paste or rice mold, ketchup, hot sauce--you get the idea. The fundamentals are simple: When the pH drops below 4.6, the acidic environment 'prevents the growth of food-spoiling microorganisms and eliminates certain food toxins and pathogens.' In other words, pickling preserves. And as with most cured foods, the results taste great, too. Pickles were common 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. Romans pickled whole fried fish in hot vinegar. The range of pickled foods extends from mushrooms in Russia, locusts in Persia and herring in Holland to bananas in the West Indies, lemons in North Africa and feta in Greece. In Japan, they quick-pickle chrysanthemums as a condiment. Who knew? --Christopher Kimball Christopher Kimball's Milk Street Magazine