In Romania, mostly as a form of preservation for winter, but also in summer for the taste, various vegetables are pickled in various ways. This is a post about such things, for whomever may have an interest. I was originally going to call it Pie Pickles, but that would be confusing and also untrue, as my mom did most of the work. I will start with standard disclaimers that: one, not everyone in Romania pickles thus, and two there may not be anything uniquely Romanian about this. After all, how many ways can there be to pickle a pepper. This is how it is done in my family and I believe broadly representative of how it is done in Romania. I assume most countries pickle things, but at least in Western Europe, it seems less prominent than in Romania, where many restaurants will have pickle medley as a side dish on the menu.
The measurements are not what some of the more thorough people would call accurate because my mom has been doing this for 50 years and does not really measure things. However, as she does this with success every year and I doubt it is ever exactly the same, I assume high accuracy is not needed. I have also attempted to translate to primitive measurements, and have ball parked 35 grams – my mom’s estimate of one heaped tablespoon of salt as she uses it – as a little more than an ounce and a liter as about a quart. I usually think of these as “pickles” but I understand that for some strange reason in Americaneze that term applies to cucumbers only. So pickled vegetables it is.
There are two main ways to go about it for the liquid, one being mostly salt-water brine, the other more vinegar based. In general, horseradish is added to most, for taste and preservation, either sliced, grated or both. Garlic as well. Celeriac is also frequent, both root and leaves. Some people like to eat the pickled root, some do not and only add it for extra flavor to the brine.
There are many things pickled, but the Big Three are Cucumbers – small ones usually; unripe tomatoes – gogonele; a cultivar of pepper called gogoșar. I would say the fourth big one would be cabbage, but this is slightly different. To this cauliflower, carrot, bell pepper, and red beet are often added, the later mostly to give everything a red color. Chilies are often pickled but that is a fairly simple process.
Cucumbers
Ingredients: 4-5 pounds cucumbers, dry dill (optional I suppose), one head of garlic, horseradish a couple of roots sliced and a couple grated, a few red chilies.
Place a few pieces of horseradish in the jar and a few cloves of garlic, and some dry dill. Add 3 rows of cucumbers, and then add more horseradish, dill and chili peppers. Repeat until the jar is full. For the brine, it is about 1.25 ounces of salt (kosher salt you might cal it, generally coarse salt no iodine) to one liquid quart of boiling water. Pour the hot brine to fill the jar. The next day, pour the brine out and press the cucumbers in the jar, as the cucumbers shrink a little. Complete the jar with more cucumbers, a few more slices of horseradish, cloves of garlic and dry dill. Make a second more salty brine, about 1.75 ounces per quart. Add grated horseradish to this brine then fill the jar until about two inches left, and finish with a little more grated horseradish and white wine vinegar.
Green tomatoes
For these the brining process is identical tot he cucumbers, just the vegetables differ. The main vegetable in unripe tomatoes, with additions of cauliflower, carrot and wedges of cabbage. Horseradish and garlic are maintained. There is no dill, the vegetables are layered and brined twice, similar to the above.
Gogoșari
Unlike the previous two, these are preserved with a lot more vinegar. Gogoșari are a cultivar of bell pepper, I am unsure they can be found in the US. They are generally round-ish, about the size of an adult hand or sometimes larger. The ingredients are the peppers, cauliflower florets, slices of carrot, white grapes, celeriac root and leaves, horseradish bay leaves and black peppercorns.
To get a sense of size, here is a gogoșar next to a slightly smaller gogoșar.
After washing the peppers, take the cores out and fill the hole with a couple of grapes, a couple of slices of carrot, a piece of cauliflower, and a celeriac leaf.
Place them in the jar, occasionally adding slices of horseradish and celeriac root. Boil 2 quarts of water with one quart of white wine vinegar and about 2.5 ounces of salt. After it comes to a boil take it off the stove, add bay leaves, peppercorns, and ground horseradish – probably 3 handfuls, this was not measured. Wait for 5 minutes to slightly cool then pour into the jar – this is my mom’s least favorite part as the smell and vapors of boiling vinegar are not pleasant and can cause one to choke.
The next day, take out part of the brine, press the existing vegetables and as they will have compressed, add more to fill the jar, add some grated horseradish on top and pour back the same brine – there will be some left.
There is an additional way to pickle gogoșari, not whole but sliced. For this for 5 kg of peppers you need one quart of white wine vinegar, 5 ounces of salt, a pound of white sugar, bay leaves, peppercorns, grated horseradish. The brine is not boiled, just mix everything together and leave for 24 hours stirring occasionally. Then slice the peppers, place them in a 3-quart jar, and fill with liquid. These are more sweet and sour than the rest, which are mostly sour.
For pickled chili peppers, the formula is the easiest. Put them in a jar and fill with vinegar, literally nothing else.
I do not have pics of the sliced peppers, but they can be seen in the final group photo. I am not sure if there is enough info for these to be recipes, or just an overview, but these are the main Romanian pickled vegetables.
[Editor’s Note: Pie will be sound asleep when this article is published but will check the comments when he wakes up (Wednesday morning CONUS time) and answer any questions then.]
Yummy.
Seconded.
Does the horsey-radish hit your nose at all? Love the idea of chonks of it in pickles.
I had pickled grapes on a charcuterie plate a while back…they made me want to go to my bunk.
Yeah pickled grapes seems nuts. I would love to try that.
The ones I had were sweet and only slightly vinegary. Fuckin-a they were good
Does the horsey-radish hit your nose at all – not that much but a little
Also, those cukes look delicious.
I love horseradish. I’m all about trying this.
Seconded.
I really like pickled vegetables. The tomatoes look just like my grandpop’s. He grew and pickled cucumbers, green tomatoes, eggs, and beets.
Great article and pics.
I thought green tomatoes was a eastern Europe thing… pickle I mean I know you people fry them
Frying green tomatoes is more from the Southeastern US.
Very nice, Pie. Fermented food not only tastes great, it is good for your health.
especially fermented grape juice
Beets and Picked eggs with horseradish are great.
A pound of sugar? JFC.
That’s only about one super size soda
those are my least favorite pickles, too sweet
We all know this is Pie’s “working” hours.
Heh. Boiling vinegar. I try to do that outside. Nothing like a face full of vinegar fumes to spoil the evening.
Ugh my mom baked dirt one day. At least that’s what it smelled like. I dunno WTF it was but it stunk to high heaven. I don’t think it was a food product – maybe it was some crazy project she read about somewhere.
My mom used to melt paraffin periodically. Had big cubes of it in the cupboard. I never figured out why or what she used it for. Candles? Sealing jars? She did neither of those things.
Kinky sex stuff?
The obviously correct answer
Yanking pubic hair out by the roots?
Please don’t make me think of that.
I almost wrote something similar but decided to spare you.
I want to get pickled in Romania.
Or get my hands on those veggies. Yum.
I’d like to squeeze some Romanian melons….
I wonder if Englandeze is different in this regard.
Isn’t it gherkin in Britland?
https://www.yanceysfancy.com/pre-sliced-shingles/2-lb-steakhouse-onion-cheddar-
Recommended. Yum.
Wow, now I want a chicken quesadilla.
https://denvergazette.com/news/accused-club-q-shooter-changed-name-at-15-dad-was-mma-and-porn-star-mom/article_ddb4e564-6a74-11ed-b674-9fca61c5f9c9.html
Stranger than fiction.
Yaaas queen!
Yeah these stories are always soooo fucked up.
That kid had a really bad upbringing. Made him crazy. No intervention after the bomb threat was a problem. But what can you do with that?
But… there are plenty of people who had a really bad upbringing who don’t go on to become mass murderers.
Hard to say if or how much that matters.
Oh, absolutely. But there was no doubt the guy was unhinged. Sealing his record and not checking in periodically may have been a bad mistake.
I suppose… but I can also imagine resenting the fuck out of The State constantly checking in on me because my parents were garbage.
Just a shit situation.
Yep. I think last time there was a serious conversation along these lines, nobody could come up with a solution. Just a horrible situation, to your point.
NPR had an interview with the guy. They desperately tried to get him to blame the eeeevil rethuglikkkans, but he demurred.
Also, they didn’t explicitly state it, but it seemed like he was a straight dude there because his daughter’s boyfriend’s band was playing.
We can pickle that! https://youtu.be/yYey8ntlK_E
Let’s see those chili peppers, Pie.
You ain’t got nothing on me. 😛
Mrs Fourscore, Vietnamese by birth, pickles lots of things, often in small batches, in the refrig. We just finished some watermelon rind pickles, not the heavy spiced ones (which are really good and require much more work) but some that were ready in a couple days. She has pickled peppers, both hot and salad, in the refrig, aging . I really like pickled beets. My wife’s pickled cukes are not so good, seems like they get cooked in the jars from the brine being too hot. She had just made daikon radish pickles, (not my favorite). A few years ago she made pickled crab apples, good but too sweet and tomato jam.
The last couple years my gardening has been almost not existent, hoping for a better effort in ’23.
Thank you all for your comments on the BIG BOOM article. I work on a DoD property and can’t sign in and comment at work.
All sorts of good songs but you missed this classic?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frAEmhqdLFs
Or the related song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrbv40ENU_o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Av29Jp8Ryk
Oooh horseradish in your pickles! I might have to try that
The old joke is that military intelligence is neither.
I’d replace that with in the 2020s medical ethics is neither. Between drugging confused kids so they can cut off their junk, to this…..
https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/should-individualism-be-medicated?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=441185&post_id=86021257&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
This seems a good way to set off a shooting war.
JFC that’s so ridiculous I can’t believe it’s real.
| The proposed solution to give people morality pills is more than idle thinking. Several candidate psychoactive substances are identified and considered seriously: psilocybin and oxytocin, for example.
I’ve taken a pretty healthy amount of sillysiben and other psychedelics in my lifetime, and in no way do I think it made me any more compliant with the bullshit they are trying to push. These ejits have zero fucking idea of what they are taking about. Those substances are anything but neatly predictable when mixed with the human brain.
I’ve noticed that “philosophers” and “ethicists” are on the forefront of “studying” (i.e. “pushing”) the most insane fucking totalitarian nightmare-fuel lately. WTF is up with that. Maybe it’s always been that way, I dunno.
Yeah it seems that way, doesn’t it? While these type fields have been fairly dominated by the left for a long while now, the left is now no longer the anti establishment but the establishment. They have thoroughly won control so now they need to keep pushing farther into nutball territory to still feel radical as most of they have largely achieved most of their desired goals.
Yeah I’m not sure if they’re serious or just going balls-to-the-wall nutso to see what sticks.
When I was younger I wanted to be an ethicist, but I had no idea how one goes about getting paid for doing something so silly.
It really isn’t any different when the progressives were pushing hard core eugenics. They have climbed so far up their own asses that cannot realize how nuts they sound.
Didn’t Plato suggest that everyone be ruled by Philosopher-Kings?
Philosophers can think themelves into coutnerfactual positions (see Plato) and ability to differentiate theory from practice is not required for the job.
Keep them away from the levers of power.
Not disagreeing, just pointing out that that caste has been pushing autocracy for a loooong time.
I think there’s an underlying conceit that they are best suited to exercise power and will be the ones doing so. Since they lack practical understanding, they’re usually up against the wall instead.
They’re going to slip the drugs into our rations of bug paste.
They already discussed putting covid MRNA “vaccine” in the 2022 Flu shot w/o informing the plebs. I skipped the flu shot because the people administering it couldn’t show the flu strains covered this year. In the past there was an info sheet available that showed that information. This year, it wasn’t available. I “Noped” and departed w/o the shot.
Wise man.
This is just exhibit number bajillion as to why collectivism leads to bad moral outcomes.
Wonderful article, Pie!
The measurements are not what some of the more thorough people would call accurate because my mom has been doing this for 50 years and does not really measure things
My Italian grandmother was the best cook I’ve ever met. When I tried to learn her amazing pasta sauce it became obvious very quickly that these genius women have no goddamn clue how much they are putting into the pot.
Cooking is an art because of differences with the inputs. While I hate the term “season to taste” in a recipe, I know why it’s there.
Yes, that’s all fine and good for the TV show, but honestly is it too much to ask for weights?
The worst batch of my families Honey Mustard BBQ sauce I ever made was when I tried to measure what I was doing. It messed up my process.
Yup, Been there too.
I then had to take what I’d scribbled down and adjust it the next time to get closer to what I was actually doing.
My wife is a good cook, but never makes recipes and often does things on the fly. I think this is related to our subconscious being far smarter than our conscious in some ways.
Awesome article.
Anybody hear from “First”?
No. Been rather worried. He took ill with COVID a few weeks ago and vanished entirely.
Yeah, he’s been on my mind as well. If anybody has any ideas or avenues for getting ahold of him to see how he is, I for one would appreciate it.
Same.
This is what I love about coming to Glibs every day. You never know what kind of article is going to turnip.
Kudos to the writers and TPTB for doing all this for us, and not even drawing a celery.
This kind of praise beets the usual cynicism I see everywhere else.
It’s no garden party.
More like lemon party.
You can’t peas everyone, you got to peas yourself.
I am rooting for Pie to do some more articles.
If Swiss were reading this, he’d get hot around the collard.
This pun thread died on the vine without him.
I forgot that the main Gogoșari brine also has a tablespoon of sugar added.
Hey! You’re awake!
yes. I need to go to the office but it is raining. SO I am having my coffee home and hopefully the rain slows down and I can go
I mean obviously you are awake. Thanks for the article.
Sleep is for the weak!
fell asleep at 10, woke up at 5 40… I was aiming for 8 hours of sleep and nearly got there. I need to go to sleep later so I wake up latter, but I was sleepy yesterday
Dammit I closed my eyes here and *poof* lost an hour.
And it should be 2 ounces of salt not 2.5 … Maybe that can be somehow edited in
I now have the pictures for an article on the pickled cabbage but not sure if there is interest, although it could be used as filler if the site has a lack of stuff. Gonna be shorter though
Kraut style or kimchi style? Either way, add a little sriracha and slap it on a hot dog… it’s bound to stimulate some frank discussion.
Kraut style i would assume it aint like kimchi
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM, kraut. Had some last night with ring bologna. Left-overs in the fridge, might get some later if I get hungry.
Oh well off to the office I go
Have a good day.
it never is but thanks
I have a storytelling complaint about a work most of you probably didn’t see. (So few people are silly enough to pay for Warhammer+). It’s also a complaint about how they handled a twist, so the rant contains spoilers.
The basic premise of the viseo short is that a human settled world is about to be invaded by all-consuming bug aliens, and there’s nowhere near enough transport capacity to evacuate any significant amount of the population, so they’re on lockdown, but a small family managed to get either forged or otherwise suspect papers to get onto one of the shuttles provided they could cross the city in time, though rioting has now broken out. In of itself, this part works fine with or without a twist.
After they got on the shuttle, the twist is revealed, the family was actually Genestealers (hybrids who call the bug aliens to a habitable world full of things to eat), with the baby carrier containing a young purestrain genestealer (fully bug-alien who starts the process). This would work just fine if not for the fact that near the start of the short they showed the contents of the baby carrier and it was fully human (looks nothing like a purestrain). So it went from being an okay twist that would otherwise fit to “You LIED to me!” To fix it all they needed to do was to cut out the half second clip showing the fully-human baby early on. No one would ever notice that all you saw was a baby carrier in the mother’s arms.
This bugged me because they’d been doing so well.
https://25.media.tumblr.com/e1eb77c58c6638523f7976df53fad941/tumblr_ml1mttJwjP1qa601io1_500.gif
Not with where that unsealed bag has been.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/at-least-7-dead-including-suspect-in-shooting-at-a-walmart-in-virginia-police-say/ar-AA14rrwO
The holidays bring out the crazies.
Mark Warner is an asshole, alreayd getting his banboner on.
“It’s sad. We’re a couple days before the Thanksgiving holiday,” Kosinski said, adding, “It’s just a bad time all around, just for everybody involved — especially the victims. This is horrible.”
I found this quote comical.
https://youtu.be/GnQsKJcCOCo
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/riverside-county-thief-seen-on-video-stealing-homes-holiday-decorations/
The holidays bring out the crazies.
???
How is she not in prison already? Oh is this in Cali?
Mornin. 😉
Morning
umaga
Good morning, Sean, U, Roat, and Lack!
It’s Virtual Friday! Then there’ll be another one for those of us sensible enough to work on Friday instead of going shopping. My only concern about my (actual) Friday commute is that my interstate exit to the office is perilously close to a mall. With any luck, though, by almost 8:30 a.m. the hardcore shoppers should already be fully engaged in hand-to-hand combat at all the stores.
I’m somewhat concerned.
I went to bed at a sensible hour, and woke up with enough time to have a relaxed morning routine and still arrive at the office at 6:30. Plus I had enough rewards cash at the local grocery store to cover half my breakfast.
Something’s bound to go wrong today.
someone will sneak some cardamom in your lunch
“Expect everything, I always say, and the unexpected never happens.” – Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth
It sounds as if you’re feeling better today than you were yesterday morning.
Well the whole “no vomitting” thing really improves the spirits.
Oh and I need to respond to five or six canvass letters, so I need to write a generic cover letter since they’re all IT Specialist titles in my current agency so I don’t know what the work is. I might just ask for a second opinion from you when I’ve drafted one.
Five or six! That seems like a lot at one time. Is that typical, or is it possible there’s more turnover than usual, maybe because it’s near the end of the year?
…and certainly I’m always happy to help (if my input actually helps) any way I can!
There are a handful of bottlenecks in the hiring process (individuals really) who need to approve requests. If there’s enough of a backlog with people complaining that they can’t hire due to waiting on so and so, upper management leans on the bottlenecks you get a whole burst of activity at once.
https://nationaltoday.com/drinksgiving/
Happy drinksgiving day. 🍸🍺🍷
I need some motivation to read… anyone interested in a really bad book report on modern Islamic history? 😀
How about a series of bad book reports?
Are these reports on bad books, or bad reports on books?
yes.
Reminds me of a book review I heard about years ago (and the story may be apocryphal) wherein the entirety of the review was the words “This slim volume.”
Okay. Might be closer to ‘recommend’ or ‘do not recommend’ and here’s why.
I take so long to read things I start forgetting what the book was about.
I was thinking about how poor peasants would have made pickles, and remembered that in ye olde days they wouldn’t have had nice glass jars with airtight lids. Anyway, one of the historical lifestyle youtubers I watch does old timey recipes- they just used clay jars. I can’t remember if they did anything in particular to seal them, I think they just used a clay lid.
Anyone have tips on getting google to correct your business address?
We had a complicated change (business address not exactly where we wanted to people to go- which was a next door parking garage).
They messed it up the first go around and then couldn’t change the address ‘because of the election’ (????) and now they’re ‘reviewing’ it for 30 more days.
I assume you’d have to battle a Diversity Officer in a cage match.
*Cues fight music
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml4wAnvfM4M
Off to work for me. Long day. Talk to you all again Thursday.
Kroikah!
The Truth Is Out There
Mulder unleashed!
“Turns out I was just dosed with LSD by MK-ULTRA”
Kevin McCarthy Is delaying the bill which would let them talk because he is one of the LIZARD PEOPLE just like Pelosi.
I found this line hilarious.
sadly it is not a fully original line 🙂
It doesn’t need to be. You deployed it perfectly.
LATE LYNX?!?
Also, speaking for myself, the reason I disappear at/near 8:00 eastern is that is when I have work to do that I can’t be glibbing simultaneously. my 7:30 meeting for example is one of those “turn on teams and ignore.”
Today looks quiet for me. No one wants to be in the office today so I think I’m alone here. (at least in this part of the building I am) Though I’m sure work will sneak up on me (like that database creation request I should be filling out)