{"id":3465,"date":"2011-09-30T20:57:18","date_gmt":"2011-10-01T02:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/?p=3465"},"modified":"2015-10-26T09:20:12","modified_gmt":"2015-10-26T15:20:12","slug":"karolinas-crock-pickles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/?p=3465","title":{"rendered":"Karolina’s Crock Pickles"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a>

Last month, my friend Jony informed me that she was going to make some crock pickles.\u00a0 “What are crock pickles?”, I asked her.\u00a0 I wondered\u00a0whether they were related to the\u00a0“crocs” in the Nile.\u00a0 Are they as dangerous?\u00a0\u00a0Probably \u00a0not.\u00a0 Crock pickles are cucumbers that are pickled in a crock.\u00a0 A crock is a piece of pottery used mainly for storing\u00a0food and\u00a0water.\u00a0 What is\u00a0special about these pickles, beside the\u00a0amazing antique crock to contain them,\u00a0is that they go through a controlled fermentation using\u00a0a brine (water and salt solution).\u00a0 Conventional or commercial\u00a0pickles\u00a0are made with\u00a0salt and vinegar and do not go through fermentation.\u00a0 I was\u00a0very excited since I’ve never seen this process before.\u00a0 It is a very old fashioned\u00a0way of preserving food,\u00a0the way\u00a0Jony’s grandmother Karolina\u00a0use to do every year.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Keith and I had planned a vacation out west when Jony had the pickling party,\u00a0but we were glad that she agreed to document the entire process for us.\u00a0 Thank you Jony.<\/p>\n

Ingredients<\/em><\/p>\n

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Karolina came from a small village in Czechoslovakia.\u00a0 At the age of 15 she started work as a cook for a Jewish family in Austria.\u00a0 Jony’s grandfather came to the states\u00a0and worked as a welder for three years.\u00a0 He then\u00a0bought a house, sent for Karolina, and they got married.\u00a0 They had four children, one of which was Jony’s father.\u00a0 When Jony was young, her father would visit grandma Karolina\u00a0every Friday.\u00a0There were noodles hanging from chairs and always a pot of chicken soup with dumplings on the stove.\u00a0 She also made her own paper thin dough for strudel.\u00a0 At Christmas time,\u00a0the family enjoyed her butterhorn cookies filled with ground walnuts or poppy seeds.\u00a0 Jony remembers biking to her grandmother’s house to help her pick currants for jelly.\u00a0 Karolina used everything she grew in her garden.\u00a0 She passed down her recipes to Jony’s mother and then Jony learned from her mother.\u00a0 Now, thanks to Jony’s generosity we might be able to enjoy Karolina’s crock pickles.<\/p>\n

Karolina & Family (Jony’s father is the tallest child in the middle)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>RECIPE<\/strong><\/p>\n

Crock Pickles\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

*<\/em><\/strong>First,\u00a0find yourself a 5 gallon crock.\u00a0 Jony has a Redwing<\/a> brand one.\u00a0 You can buy them brand new or you might look for them\u00a0in antique\u00a0shops.\u00a0 You’ll also need some space where there is little foot traffic like a basement (a place where you wouldn’t mind\u00a0a really really\u00a0heavy smell of garlic).\u00a0 I know Jony prominently displayed her pickles at the scarf shop she manages.\u00a0 I wonder if\u00a0she gained or lost any friends\/customers that week. \ud83d\ude42 I could still detect a hint of garlic a week after she was done processing the cucumbers.<\/p>\n

Ingredients<\/em><\/p>\n