Pickling Love in the Time of Plenty

     If there is a deeper meaning behind everything we do in life, what would be behind the practice of pickling excess seasonal produce?  We love hoarding stuff. We wish we could keep things forever. We assume that the things we save today will save us tomorrow. No matter what the common experience, we tend to overlook anything to the contrary. We believe in what we love.

I don’t know what anthropologists will have to say about this, but I strongly hold the view that pickling culture has something in common with nature. Our ancestors, from the dawn of civilization, began hoarding things for a rainy day. They wanted to store things, not only for putting them to better use later, but also for keeping them from rotting. An excellent tradition. But at a deeper level, it also reflects their trust in tomorrows. In agrarian societies, seasonal plants fruit in huge quantities. Since the yield cannot be wholly consumed by the family, the fruits of their labor would go to waste in a relatively short time if not preserved one way or another.

Our grandmas had seen many days of dearth, droughts, and even shorter spans of famines before the phenomenal onset of perpetual “progress” and supply. They appreciated everything that Mother Nature had gifted them. They hurt no part of nature, wasted nothing, and preserved everything they could in the form of pickles, jam or jelly by drying, oiling, salting etc. I think the same thoughtfulness can save us from perishing. We can’t go wrong heeding the lessons from their life experiences, though they may appear less appealing to the younger generation.

The photo shows jars of “Kadumanga”, a pickle delicacy made from seasonally available tender mango, much earlier than they really mature, ideally ranging from grape-size to a little bigger than a lemon. Nothing artificial; only naturally occurring ingredients go into the making of the pickle. Wash, drain and wipe the baby mangoes dry; these should preferably be a more sour type of mango, with the bunches still intact, and the fruit broken off from the stalk and dropped right into the jars together with the sap, then layered with crystal salt. The sap, along with the salt, is the secret to successful preservation. Seal the jars, ensuring they are airtight, and shake the jars every day. After about ten days, add spices like chilly, mustard and asafetida, all well powdered, to create a titillating effect for your taste buds. Also add boiled gingelly oil once cooled off to lock in the developing flavors and extend the shelf life virtually indefinitely. A lesson in microbiology: sterilize your utensils in the sun first. This way there is no moisture for microbes to grow in.

I like to think Arundhati Roy and Salman Rushdie both had their novels “pickled” to further their chances of winning The Booker Prize.

Roy’s The God of Small Things frequently references Paradise Pickles and Preserves, a pickling company ran by Mammachi in an attempt to preserve the past.

 Midnight’s Children by Rushdie contains these lines about the “Symbolic value of the pickling process: all the six hundred million eggs which gave birth to the population of India could fit inside a single, standard-sized pickle-jar; six hundred million spermatozoa could be lifted on a single spoon. Every pickle-jar (you will forgive me if I become florid for a moment) contains, therefore, the most exalted of possibilities: the feasibility of the chutnification of history; the grand hope of the pickling of time!”.

      What makes those pickles stand apart from the rest?  The only unique selling point (USP) I can think of is this: to the secret condiments were added indispensable intangibles, feelings of love, care and affection – all the qualities that truly make a grandma a grandma.