Spreading the love of pickles, one jar at a time
Move over, blogsters. Clear the counters. It’s pickle time!
I had planned to tear down a fence this week, in part to keep the Large Smelly Boys busy because it’s the one week all summer when THEY’RE BOTH HOME. But then I realized it was the only few days I’d be in town during pickle season.
So, please, don’t bother to call. We’re too busy with mustard seeds, canning salt and … oh yeah … cukes!
We make bread and butters, dills and sweets. Other times we make jam, apple chutney, pesto and mustard. So you might think we’re the Scatter Family, but really we’re the Condiment Family.
Why pickles? Well, we like to eat ‘em, we like to make ‘em, we like to give ‘em away.
But there’s a deeper level, and it’s a sweet and sad little story. I first “published” it somewhere else on the internets, so forgive me if you’ve read it before. It’s slightly adapted for this audience. I originally wrote it as part of a series of stories about the author Henry James.
Why pickles make the perfect present
OR
Changing the literary landscape, one jar of pickles at a time
As in many Henry James novels, often the smallest gesture has the biggest import, backed by layers of meaning, history, implication and nuance. It can be a short, shared experience between two people, seemingly commonplace, but it immediately accelerates to a potent moment when given just a little backstory. James knew all about backstory, the bigger picture, the stuff rich stories are made of.
Martha Ullman West, Art Scatter’s favorite dance correspondent, emailed me soon after my story about trying to read James appeared in the O! books section of The Oregonian on Jan. 4 of this year.
I had notified most people that I was including their comments in my story, but I didn’t say a thing to Martha. I left it all as a surprise.
She didn’t know that the fine edition of The Ambassadors that had belonged to her late husband, Frank West, would be featured so prominently.
She generously gave me that book after I told my woeful tale of my sad little copy from the library. I gave her a quart jar of my best dill pickles in return.
Soon after, Martha wrote: “Unbeknownst to you, I think the pickles were a completely appropriate gift, because Frank made pickles every summer until the last year of his life. Kosher dills were his specialty.”
My dad made pickles. Once.
It was just a few weeks after my mom had surgery to remove a large tumor from the middle of her brain when my aunt showed up at the house with a box full of pickling cukes.
Before my mom had surgery my family didn’t know how or if she would recover. We weren’t given any expectations. We didn’t know whether she’d be able to walk or talk. We were told the recovery process could take up to a year.
But only a few weeks after surgery my mom was up and about a bit. Oddly, the memory embedded most in my mind is my mom sitting on the front stoop of the house, a large bandage wrapped around her head, carefully trying to control her hand movements as she put smelly mothballs into pantyhose, tied them, and then buried them in the planters next to the stoop as a ruse to keep out the pesky squirrels that dug there all the time. It never worked. The squirrels just scratched aside the mothballs, one tied pantyhose after another, leaving the porch to smell like a nasty attic. My mom did all this while sitting rigidly straight and not bending over, because she risked her brain collapsing in and then the outside of it hemorrhaging. Which would have been bad. It could have killed her.
My dad, who was always antsy in the best of circumstances, carefully attended my mom and was determined to keep everything as normal as possible. He never stopped moving. He did all the things my mom had always done. He cooked. He cleaned. He couldn’t keep himself busy enough.
And then my aunt showed up with cucumbers. When my dad asked what he was supposed to do with them, my aunt replied that my mom always made pickles.
And so she had. Every summer. Along with canned peaches and pears.
Bread-and-butter pickles were her specialty. They’re the ones with sliced cucumbers and soft streamers of onions and a bunch of mustard seeds and peppercorns that look like confetti. Those pickles were always in our pantry and in the fridge. They were always in fancy dishes on holiday tables. I had never known them not to be there.
And I had never known my dad to command the mottled black enamel canner until that summer. He made batch after batch of bread-and-butter pickles. The jars started lining up on the counter and they started to pop as they sealed. My dad would say, “Did you hear that? They go ‘pop, pop, pop.’” I would laugh and say, “How was that again?” He would repeat it: “They go ‘pop, pop, pop!‘”
After a day or two he had stacks of jars, each labeled with his tidy uppercase printing.
After a few months he started to have headaches. When he finally went to the doctor, he was immediately given prescriptions and an appointment with a neurosurgeon. He had a brain tumor.
We could tell the rhythm was completely different this time from when my mom had surgery. With her, doctors weren’t hurried about setting dates, taking plenty of time to carefully map her brain to figure out the least invasive path. They knew her tumor was most likely benign and slow-growing. With my dad, appointments were scheduled right away.
His surgery, just days after his diagnosis, confirmed what we had suspected: The tumor was malignant. He had one of the most aggressive types of brain cancer. We were told he would probably have a year.
My dad, who had so attentively taken care of my mom, not just after her surgery but for all the months and years before it when her behavior was so goofy and we didn’t know why, now had to be taken care of. And my mom, just months out of surgery and still recovering herself, suddenly had to take care of my dad.
By the time pickling cukes were in their prime again my dad was wobbly and sleeping more. He never made pickles again.
So you see, Martha, pickles were a perfectly appropriate gift. Unbeknownst to you, my dad made pickles. Just once. Near the last year of his life. Bread-and-butters were his specialty.
August 20th, 2009 at 4:33 am
And so from steaming New York, the Big A, Gotham, let me be the first to comment on this lovely, funny, nostalgic, poignant post which has made me all weepy and teary-eyed. At lunch time I will go in search of a kosher dill in memory of all the pickle-makers. I am spending most of my time in an air-conditioned library looking at dance on film, some of it wobbly indeed, taken by the wonderful Ann Barzel, a Chicago dance critic who died at nearly 100 about a year ago. She used to sneak her 16 mm camera into the wings of the Lyric Theatre and film my gal Janet Reed in San Francisco Ballet’s Coppelia, not to mention Jacqueline Schumacher in Swan Lake. I’ve been looking at the choreography of Catherine Littlefield, founder of the Philadelphia Ballet, which became the Pennsylvania Ballet. My guy Todd Bolender danced for her in the first American Sleeping Beauty; Janet danced for her in Ballet Theatre’s production of Barn Dance. It’s remarkable what you can learn from these wobbly old films, not accompanied by music moreover. And I’ve been looking at stuff from the Ed Sullivan Show, which leads me in rather crass Jamesian fashion to some thoughts about making dance accessible to everyone. Television did that for quite a while, well before public broadcasting’s Dance In America.
Thank you Laura for this “pickling” post. And I think there is something quite Jamesian about bread and butter pickles; I picture them in cranberry glass dishes.
August 20th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Every summer, my wife spends a day picking berries and another making the most delicious jams. Those precious jars are our way of stretching the taste of summer through the long months of grey, wet days that are…well, most of the year.
This year, the larger of our own LSBs joined her…not just in the picking, as we’ve all done, off and on, over the years, but for the full day of replenishing supplies; cleaning jars; washing, mashing, and measuring fruit for each batch; then storing the cooled and “pop-pop-popped” jars to the pantry.
Now, my own talent with jam comes during those in-between months, so I just spent the day drifting in and out of the kitchen, sneaking fresh berries; but there was great pleasure for my wife in sharing the labor-intensive process with our son, for me in observing their interaction, and for all of us, I think, in the unspoken understanding that we were present at the birth of a family tradition.
Thanks again, Laura, for triggering such pleasant memories by sharing your own.
August 21st, 2009 at 8:07 am
A lovely and touching story accompanied by equally sweet comments. Thanks.
I grew curious about the origins of the name “bread and butter pickles,” but found nothing definitive online. I did find reference to “bread and butter pericarditis” accompanied by an entirely unpleasant photograph and this description: “The epicardial surface of the heart shows a shaggy fibrinous exudate. This appearance has often been called a ‘bread and butter’ pericarditis, but you would have to drop your buttered bread on the carpet to really get this effect.” That wasn’t helpful. Any ideas on how that pickle got named?
August 21st, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Thanks for all the heartfelt comments. I love hearing the family stories and odd medical references.
Martha, a pleasing back-and-forth, as always. Your generosity inspired plenty.
David, a terrific family tale. Foodstuffs and family go well together. My own attempt at jamming this year was maddening. I made jam many, many miles from home and then had to get it safely to my freezer. What was I thinking? I picked a ton of strawberries in sweltering heat, the canning plans didn’t work out, the freezer jam Plan B meant buying new supplies based on a recipe that turned out to be out of date. I was stuck with a bunch of pectin that required a ton of sugar and very little fruit, putting hardly a dent in my overlarge supply of berries and costing me a huge amount of time. When I decided I was being ridiculous (no shock to you, I’m sure) and tossing in the red-stained towel, I had already washed and culled and needlessly mashed all of the strawberries. I ended up spooning most of the mush into bags and throwing them in the freezer overnight and then sticking them all in a cooler to get them home. So I see large quantities of smoothies for the LSBs this year. And I’m sure the jam will grossly elevate my glucose level in a heartbeat. Perhaps my most pathetic attempt at food preservation to date.
I’m thinking pickles and window cleaning go well together.
I’m thinking bread always hits the carpet butter-side down. Didn’tcha know that’s a vigorously tested physics formula? I know it’s one that always gives me heart trouble.
August 21st, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Oh, and Martha. I can’t wait to read the fuller report. Your comments have been nice little postcard posts about dance.
August 21st, 2009 at 2:46 pm
On the internets, I discovered that the name arose during the Depression, when they were said to be so good that you could eat them in a sandwich made with bread and butter.
My dad told me his mother used to give them butter and onion sandwiches when there was nothing else for lunch, so I’m inclined to believe the explanation.
August 21st, 2009 at 6:29 pm
hmm, pickles. Yes, they are a great distraction. I think I need to make pickles this year. Hm. My Mom makes watermelon pickles. Love them. I also love the condiment family, and ALL of their pickles! I am a pickle FAN! Not just any pickle fan, a Scatter family/condiment family pickle fan……. need I say more?
August 21st, 2009 at 7:56 pm
David, thanks for tracking down a very plausible explanation of the etymology for “bread and butter pickle.”
Laura, when you said you “can’t wait to read the fuller report,” my first thought was, “Is Martha writing a report on Loïe Fuller?”
August 23rd, 2009 at 3:35 pm
mtc - how wonderful the old dance films must be. just got back from the maryhill in eastern WA, where you can watch the little loop they have of loie downstairs next to all the rodin. she’s whirling and whirling all day long.
two days ago it was peaches day in my kitchen. and i kept saying to myself: i’ve got to learn to make bread and butters. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. thank you for this post.
pop pop pop!
August 23rd, 2009 at 3:39 pm
oh, i meant muw… but hi to mtc anyway.
August 23rd, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Hol: I see pickles and other condiments in your future. Laur
xtine: Swap you some pickles for some peaches?? Love that loop of Loie at Maryhill. It twirls endlessly.
To let you know how incestuous we really are (in case you had any doubts), a few years ago MUW (Mighty Under Wear) did a story about Loie Fuller and others, Mr. Scatter edited it and I dug out historic photos and put the package together. Those were the days when we actually got paid.
August 24th, 2009 at 7:48 am
I remember with fondness the pictures Miss Laura found for that article, for which I also got paid. I spent yesterday evening with three of my colleagues here in NY, and while the food was delicious, and the drink flowing, the conversation about the state of dance critics, if not dance criticism, was dour to say the least.
And yes, the old dance films are swell and I too adore that loop of La Loie at Mary Hill. Onwards to the library, also in terrible shape, and a good week to one and all.
August 25th, 2009 at 11:17 am
The 2009 pickle yield: 25 quarts of dills, 16 pints of bread and butters, 23 “pintishes” of sweets. Mr. Scatter did most of the slicing and packing, Mrs. Scatter did all of the brining and boiling and masterminding. At one point, because brine mixture and cucumbers weren’t coming out evenly, Mr. Scatter made an emergency run to pick up 10 more pounds of cukes, for a total of 50. The pickles look right nice. As usual, we’ll let ‘em age gently until Thanksgiving, at which point they should be good and ready.