September 14, 2015 | 1:22am

Carnegie Deli, which was forced to close in April after it was caught illegally siphoning gas from Con Ed, will hold interviews for its first-ever pickle mascot on Wednesday ahead of its reopening next month.

“Applicants can be green, as in inexperienced, or seasoned just like Carnegie’s delicious real pickles,” deli spokeswoman Cristyne Nicholas told The Post. “And no salty language, please; it’s a family establishment.”

Marian and Sarri Harper, co-owners of the Midtown eatery, hatched the idea.

They said they never considered any other character to be their mascot because pickles are an “essential” part of every gut-busting Carnegie meal.

The seasonal mascot will pass out pickles while dressed in a green body suit with white clown hands, Nicholas said, adding the deli will take suggestions for the mascot’s name.

The deli posted ads for the job outside its Seventh Avenue eatery and online.

Matthew Sacks, 23, plans to apply for the gig.

“A pickle — that’s American,” the Queens resident said. “When you bite into a pickle, there’s not a better sensation.”

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Name any ingredient and some region of India probably has a pickle recipe for that. Think back to your childhood and about pickles in particular – from the special bottles, known as barnis, to the faint aroma of the spices that our grandmums used, pickles are about more than just taste and flavour. They are about nostalgia, memories and diversity, something that commercial pickles can only hope to match. In this episode of The Real Food Podcast, Vikram Doctor takes you on a journey across India, telling you about the mind-boggling variety of pickles that we make and what sets our pickles apart.

Unlike the vinegar and brine-based pickles usually found in Western countries, our pickles are predominately made using oil. This is a bit unusual. Oil, unlike salt and vinegar, doesn’t destroy bacteria or desiccate the produce, two crucial aspects of pickling any ingredient. But, oil is where all the magic happens. Ananda Solomon, the executive chef at Vivanta by Taj – President, explains, “Pickle has life in it – it keeps on maturing, and oil helps in enhancing that.” Simply put, the chemicals that give spices their flavour and aroma are enhanced by the use of oil.

The use of oil is also why pickle making in India is such an intricate ritual. Not only do we prefer using certain kinds of oil (mustard in the north and sesame down south), which are known to last longer, we also have elaborate processes of pre-cooking ingredients and drying them in the sun. Bangalore-based writer and author Kaveri Ponnapa has written an excellent piece in Scroll, which details the craft of making traditional Coorg pickles.

Unsurprisingly, Coorg isn’t the only place that boasts of pickles endemic to a region. From the carrot pickle in North India to the mussels pickle in south, India has an impressive and unmatchable array of pickles. In fact, in a Google search with a generic term “pickle types”, the first search result is Wikipedia’s page on the list of Indianpickles. As Rita D’souza, the author of Pickles and Chutneys of India, tells Vikram,everything can be pickled. “Even potato can be pickled – that was surprising even for me!” says Rita.

It’s difficult to get your hands on Rita’s book, as well as others such as Usha’s Pickle Digest. And, with more and more pickles being mass produced, it may seem as though we are forgetting the delightful flavours of homemade pickles in favour of the convenience that commercial pickles provide. But, there are some restaurants, like Taj Connemara’s Raintree with its pickle trolley, that are giving them the importance they deserve. And, as a hopeful Rita points out, thanks to the internet, the pendulum is swinging towards the discovery of our culinary history and tradition.

Pickles are crucial to Indian cuisine and we need to enjoy them all.

BY

CRISTIANA TERWILLIGER – Munchies.com

There’s at least one food truck on every street corner these days, but driving around with a cart full of edible items is hardly a new concept. Being a food vendor in the Netherlands has been an occupation here since 1850. Roasted chestnuts, fish, and pastries used to be sold on the street. Pickled items such as onions and cucumbers were sold from traditional Amsterdam pickle carts. Jewish vendors from five different families sold the pickled vegetables with their signature sweet-and-sour tastes in their neighborhoods, traveling rain or shine to supply the entire city.

And yet one of those founding families, De Leeuw, is still going strong today.

Things have dramatically changed though since the family began their business, as they swapped hawking their pickles on the street for a storefront in Rivierenbuurt, an Amsterdam neighborhood. “Starting in the 60s, the roads became too busy from there on out. Cars honked behind the carts, so we wanted to find a brick-and-mortar location. The times simply caught up with us,” says Fred de Leeuw, the fourth-generation pickle seller.

Fred tells me that the pickle carts were born out of need in a time of great poverty. To make sure that seasonal produce was available year-round, many types of fruits and vegetables were pickled.

The fruit and vegetables—pearl onions, shallots, and cucumbers, for example–are put on salt until they can’t absorb anymore. At this point, they are considered “afgeflauwd,” the process of getting the right level of saltiness. Then, the “opgiet” follows, the critical moment when wine vinegar and a secret blend of spice are added, which will determine the signature taste. Depending on the size of the fruit or vegetable, this process takes at least six weeks.

According to Fred, the combination of sweet and sour is what makes their product so unique. “The Jewish kitchen leans towards sweetness because of things like the fruit sugars in wine. That is our trademark: a sweet treat with a sour note.”

The cooking process hasn’t changed in 165 years, so much so that everything is sold exactly as it was back in the day when the De Leeuw’s were still operating their carts. “We run the store with old merchants permits which means that we don’t have to weigh anything. We sell everything per scoop or per unit,” Fred explains.

In recent years, the family has added some experimental items to the menu, such as pesto, mustard pickles, pickled grapes, and olives.

In Dutch Jewish homes, at dinnertime, there is always something pickled on the table. “It’s not the main dish, but something to go with the rest of the food,” says Fred. “The sour neutralizes and resets your taste buds in a way,” Monique continues. The onions and pickles that were made during times of famine and food shortages have moved outside of the traditional Yiddish kitchen. At restaurants like Rijks in the famous Rijksmuseum, chef Joris Bijdendijk adds sour notes to some of his dishes, while chef Dennis Kuipers of Vinkeles in the Dylan Hotel likes to cook with pickled grapes.

Is the love for sweet-and-sour foods typically Jewish or really just an Amsterdam thing? “The unique, sweet taste makes it Jewish, but Judaism and Amsterdam go hand in hand,” says Fred, as he proudly looks onto his pickled products.