Summer Bonus Episode: Fermented Cabbage, Pickle Parades and More Favorite Facts about Pickles

As the summer begins to wind down, we’re thinking about our favorite way to keep and preserve the garden’s bounty: pickling! From fermentation methods that help your gut to Kool-Aid Pickle recipes, we’re sharing some of our favorite facts about pickling and pickles themselves. It may even inspire you to try a peanut butter and pickle sandwich in the process. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey there, I'm Mongastigu, their co host of Part Time Genius,
one of the founders of Mental Flaws. And this is
Humans Growing Stuff, a collaboration from I Heart Radio and
your friends at Miracle Grow. Our goal is to make
this the most human show about plants you'll ever listen to,
and along the way, we'll share inspiring stories, tips and
tricks to nurture your plant addiction, and just enough signs

(00:28):
to make you sound like an expert. Now we are
on summer break right now, but because Molly and I
cannot stop our plant addictions, we are bringing you some
mini episodes to brighten up your feed and grow your
plant curiosity. Throughout the summer, we'll be dropping incredible stories
from growers, advice from experts, and we'll have some fun
conversations around fascinating plant facts. For today's special bonus episode,

(00:53):
we're talking about one of our favorite ways to preserve
your garden produce. That's right, we're talking about pickling. So
I am a sucker for all types of pickled vegetables.
I like dill pickles and bread and butter pickles. I

(01:13):
like pickled beets and pickled helpinos. I love that oshenko
which is the Japanese word for pickles, literally means fragrant dish.
I can't go into a Korean shop without picking up
some kimchi or spicy pickle cabbage. If I'm at a
barbecue joint, I'll order fried pickles. And I love Indian
pickles so much that any Indian meal, no matter how

(01:34):
delicious the meal is, I will quietly ask for a
side of Launcha or as it's called, which is a
salty and tangy pickle, because to me, pickles always make
a meal more perfect. I like pickles so much that
my favorite kids book, and this is no joke, is
Pickles the Fire Cat. I've actually referenced that in two

(01:55):
different intros to books I've written, so it's no wonder
that one of my favorite parts of this was chatting
with Katie Costs in season two. She is the executive
chef at the Nashville restaurant Husk, where they have their
own in house pickling program, and when I asked her
about the restaurant's pickling practices, it was so great to
hear her get as excited about pickling as I do.

(02:18):
One of my favorite things to do, that little pain
that the can makes whenever the lid seals is like
placeless to me. It's a lost art. Nobody does it anymore,
and or nobody at a small scale does it anymore,
you know. And I thought it was funny during the pandemic,
everybody got into baking bread and I walked down the
aisle and all the mason jars were there, and I

(02:38):
would go to the farmer's room every week. And that's
all I did throughout the whole pandemic. Is I just
can't all summer right now. I've got a couple of things.
I have a summertime carrot kim chee that we made,
which was phenomenal. Um. I also have a mushroom kim chee,
lots of pickled mushrooms, um. And then all my preserved tomatoes.
This is kind of the last end of the sea eason,

(03:00):
right before we hit springtime and we get ready for
all those wonderful springtime vegetables. So right now I'm preserving
little things from winter time, Like I really love turnups
in the wintertime because they're sweeter. I alter my pickling
recipe according to the vegetable that I'm doing. I eat
almost everything rawfers before I decide to to pickle it

(03:21):
and how I'm gonna pickle it? How much am I
gonna do a salt pickling liquid or am I gonna
do uh, you know, no pickling liquid and just can
it you know, in water and preserve it as is.
But yeah, I mean it's all about the vegetable now.
Pickling is such a great way to preserve the harvest
from your backyard garden. And the crazy thing is that

(03:42):
you can pickle almost anything in your vegetable garden artichokes, beans, cauliflower, cabbage,
even melons, and if you're in more exotic locales, mangoes
and pineapples actually work too. But and this was something
I learned from another chef on this program, the key
to the perfect pickle produce is crispness. So you want

(04:04):
to pickle your fruits and vegetables when they're still fresh
and firm. And there's even a saying for this. It
goes crisp into the brine, crisp out of the brine. Anyway,
there's a whole world of pickling history, facts and helpful
recipes out there. For example, did you know there's more
than one way to pickle something instead of the traditional

(04:24):
vinegar briane method. You can also pickle by simply using salt.
And one of my favorite pickle facts is about Cleopatra,
the famously beautiful Egyptian queen. She actually thought her beauty
was derived from all the pickles she regularly ate, but
that isn't all. According to history dot com, Roman emperors,

(04:45):
including Julius Caesar, would insist their soldiers eight pickles before
they went to battle because they believe the Brian cucumbers
made their forces stronger. Kind of like Popeye and that
Cannus finach so in cell Rason of one of my
favorite ways to utilize the bounty of the garden. I'm
sharing some of my favorite pickle facts today. One Deli pickles.

(05:14):
Do you know why Delis serve pickles with sandwiches. It's
because the pickle is supposed to be a palate cleanser
after your mouth gets bored after a few bites of
the sandwich. Biting into a pickle resets your taste buds
with a burst of acid so that when you return
to the sandwich, the flavors seem completely fresh to your mouth.

(05:36):
Two kool Aid pickles in the Mississippi delta. Kool Aid
pickles are a super popular treat with kids. The easiest
way to make kool Aid pickles is to use a
jar of already pickled cucumbers. You dissolve sugar and your
drink packet flavor of choice into the pickle juice and
then add the pickles back in and let them sit

(05:58):
for about a week, and the bright red and purple
pickles don't always look that appetizing. Kids have been going
crazy for the sweet and puckery treat and they show
up at general stores to pay a dollar for a
pickle three. The next time you're playing sports, consider grabbing
a jar of pickle juice instead of the gatorade. Pickle

(06:20):
juice is actually a popular sports drink alternative for athletes,
especially marathon runners. According to Women's Running Researchers believe the
vinegar and the pickle brine relieves cramping with the help
of reaction triggered by the acetic acid. The salt and
pickle juice can also help athletes restore sodium levels after sweating,
which can be key to preventing dehydration for TB and

(06:46):
P sandwiches. Did you know that peanut butter and pickle
sandwiches used to be a thing. According to the New
York Times, the sandwiches were popular during the Great Depression
and can be found on restaurant menus across the country,
and they gained in popular clarity for a while with
Bachelor's partially because peanut butter and pickles were often two
staples you could find in the back of your fridge. Now,

(07:09):
if you're going to try it, the writer Dwight Gardner
recommends using bread and butter pickles instead of the dill varieties,
and this is how he puts it quote. Their sweetness
adds a flavor bump like a briny, sophisticated adult version
of jelly. Five Pickle vegetables can be great for your

(07:31):
gut health. Naturally fermented favorites like kinchi contained probiotics, which
are these micro organisms that can assist in the digestion process.
And finally, six, my favorite pickle fact of all time,
which comes straight out of mental Floss. In Dary and Springs, Michigan,

(07:51):
a k a. The Christmas Pickle Capital of the World,
there is a pickle parade every December that's led by
who else none other than the Grand Bill Moister. The
best and strangest part of this parade is that as
he leads the whole thing, he tosses out fresh pickles
to all the hungry parade watchers out there. I've put

(08:13):
this on my calendar and i can't wait to go
out there and cash some pickles. That's it for today's
bonus episode, but check back here again soon for more
bonus episodes this summer. And don't forget no matter what
season it is or where you're at in your gardening journey,
there's some incredible resources waiting for you on the Miracle

(08:35):
Grow website. Humans Growing Stuff is a collaboration from My
Heart Radio and your friends at Miracle Grow. Our show
is written and produced by Molly Sosha and Mean Monga together.
This episode was edited and engineered by our pal Matt Stillo.
Thank you so much for listening.