By: Team Express FoodIE   –   The Indian Express

Vedapuri Subramaniam and his wife Meenakshi work 18-hour days to make pickles, spice mixes and more at their home, which are delivered to all parts of India via their year-old website. They’re only in their 70s.

Vedapuri Subramaniam is a lean, wiry, young entrepreneur of 76. His wife Meenakshi, after whom their website Meenakshimami.com has been named, turns 70 this year. Their day usually begins before sunrise at about 5am and winds up at about 10.30pm. “Yes, I do get tired,” says Subramaniam, with a touch of defiance, “but I don’t care. I don’t call this my home. This is my factory.” A large part of his Navi Mumbai residence has been turned into a processing unit of sorts. Rows of large, cylindrical plastic cans, filled with pickles, have been lined up.

“We made avakaya pickle just last week,” says Meenakshi. The Andhra avakaya pickle has to be stirred every day for at least six weeks. The stirring bit is Subramaniam’s responsibility, while his wife checks for taste. “It’s almost like how guests at a wedding tell the host that the sambar needs a dash of salt, or the rasam is too tangy so some water can be added to adjust its taste,” says Meenakshi.

Every pickle needs some minor adjustments – salt needs to be added or more oil goes in – and the couple makes almost 400kg of 11 varieties of pickles every year, including avakaya, gongura, kadu maanga, ginger, mahani (sarsaparilla), green chilli and lemon. “My mother-in-law’s the official taster and my father-in-law does the rest from sourcing the ingredients to supervising the vegetables being cut to preserving them,” says Sonali, their daughter-in-law, who, along with her husband Shriram, helps out with the website and delivery of the products.

Subramaniam left his home town Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu in the mid-1950s to work in the food manufacturing industry in Mumbai, and supplied ingredients to various companies that made pickles and ready-to-eat foods for close to four decades. “If you see how some of the biggest companies make pickles, you wouldn’t want to eat them,” he says. “This is why I ensure that cleanliness is the most important aspect of my pickle-making.” Meenakshimami.com is not the couple’s first entrepreneurial venture. They burnt their fingers with an earlier operation that manufactured ready-to-eat food. “The competition ate me up. This is why I want to build this slowly. We need some more time to set up hassle-free delivery to other parts of the country.”

Subramaniam travels as far as Tiruchirapalli every year to source the mahani root for the sarsaparilla pickle. “Adivasis from the forests in Trichy pick these roots, and this is the most difficult pickle to make because cleaning it is tedious. But it is also one of our most popular pickles besides the ginger pickle.” Egged on by their son and daughter-in-law, he took his business online last year. “It’s mostly Maharashtrians, Tamilians and Gujaratis from Mumbai who order our pickles.” Unlike most Andhra pickles available in Hyderabad, none of these pickles contain garlic and more reasonably priced than those on supermarket shelves.

What is the couple’s favourite pickle? “Avakaya,” says Meenakshi, without blinking.

“Pickle is a must in our home, but I can’t eat too much of it at this age,” she adds. Her husband, on the other hand, doesn’t quite like p ickles. “I like these powders,” says Subramaniam, pointing to the vatha kuzhambu spice mix. “I have beaten my wife at making this. She spends hours making this at home, but with my recipe you just need to boil water, and it’s done in 10 minutes. My recipe is also one step ahead in taste.” The couple, who were been married for 47 years laughs together. When Meenakshi is out of ear shot, he says with a beaming smile, “She makes good pickles. Very good pickles. I would say the best.”

Tangy, tart, and fabulously fermentable times are just ahead downtown.

By Alysia Gray Painter   –   NBC Los Angeles

The pickle is pretty darn quirky, and we’re not just talking about its fun-to-say, oh-so-charming name.

It’s a specific foodstuff — everyone knows what you mean when you say “I want a pickle” — and yet oodles of other edibles can be pickled. Which makes the pickle much like salt, and a roast, and toast, in that what they are, and what they can do to other foods, are two deliciously distinct things.

his is solid information to possess before your mosey over to the Pickle Party atGrand Central Market. The downtown landmark is hosting the tart-to-the-taste-buds bash on Sunday, May 15, but know that you won’t just be noshing upon the green-hued classic, the one sitting in a jar inside your fridge door at this very moment.

There shall be pickling knowledge, helpful tips shared by “fermentation guru” Sandor Ellix Katz. And Mr. Katz will oversee the rather amazing main draw of the event, the “1,000 Pounds of Kraut” project.

What is this? It’s “a crowd-sourced communal sauerkraut-making session” involving a “day-long ‘Kraut Mob'” that’ll be behind the ongoing creation of, you guessed it, one thousand pounds of flavorful kraut goodness.

If you take a break from all the kraut-makery, be sure to check out the chefly demos dotting Grand Central Market, like those involving “Asian and Latino pickles and condiments.”

There’s also a pop-up Pickle Marketplace to peruse, too, and various vendors will sell “special pickle menu items” in honor of the happening.

Are you already sensing that your summertime barbecues, regardless of the main meat or veg, are about to step it up in terms of divine pickled delectables?

We wouldn’t dare suggest that pickle people ever forsake the green bumpily spear, the one we love on the side of our sandwich plate, for other, er, less greener horizons.

But the pickling planet is large, and it is welcoming of all sorts of cuisine-cool comers.

Really, what can’t be pickled (or salted or roasted or toasted)?

It’s an old kitchen calling with major implications for our contemporary entertaining. May pickled bites continue to lend tang wherever tang is needed.

A funky and fermented pop-up is giving pickle lovers the chance to sample some of the best pickles in town, learn about fermenting techniques and lend a hand in making 1,000 pounds of sauerkraut.

On Sunday, May 15, Grand Central Market, Los Angeles will host its first ever Pickle Party, a day-long event dedicated to all good things that are pickled, brined and fermented. The event will feature a pickle marketplace from local purveyors, chef demos and pickling demos. The centerpiece of the day will be the massive, communal kraut-making session led by fermentation expert and best-selling author Sandor Ellix Katz.

Throughout the day, visitors are invited to join Katz in an all-day “Kraut Mob” with the goal of creating 1,000 pounds of the good stuff. Participants will get to take home a free jar of sauerkraut along with instructions on how to complete the fermentation process at home. Katz, author of The Art of Fermentation, James Beard Foundation Book Award in 2013, will also be giving a free public lecture on fermentation and the multiple benefits of live-culture foods. He will also be joined by Pascal Baudar, a professional forager that leads tours around L.A. and author of The New Wildcrafted Cuisine: Exploring the Exotic Gastronomy of Local Terroir, for a wild-foraged pickle demonstration. Both will be signing copies of their books afterward.

The marketplace will feature fermented goodies from the local favorites, including Pickled By Hattie, Wax Paper, Brassica & Brine, Dave’s Kimchi and Perishable Pickles. While the chef demos will introduce guests to both traditional and “next-level” pickling techniques, as well as covering topics like Asian and Latino pickles and condiments, “leaf-to-root” pickling to reduce food waste, and more.

The Pickle Party will take place at Grand Central Market on Sunday, May 15, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

RICHMOND, Va – Science shows that eating pickled and fermented foods can have health benefits. You can preserve  the season’s fresh vegetables when you ferment them and you’ll find everything from vegetables to fruit at the “1st Annual Pickled and Fermented Festival.”

Ashley Ray and Larkin Garbee from the Artisan Pickle Club filled us in on the event taking place on Saturday, May 14 at 1 p.m. at Center of The Universe Brewing Companyin Ashland.

“We’re still looking for pickled or fermented vendors (pickles, kimchi, sauerkraut, sourdough bread, etc) and entries for our pickle competition,” Ray said.

Usha’s Pickle Digest, written by Chennai-based Usha R Prabakaran, contains over 1,000 recipes from across the country, and is a tribute to India’s culinary ingenuity.

Written by Lalitha Suhasini   –   The Indian Express

“In words and pickles, I have immortalised my memories, although distortions are inevitable in both methods,” writes Saleem Sinai, the protagonist of Salman Rushdie’s Booker-winning Midnight’s Children. For Sinai, pickles are a metaphor for both the country he is from – India – and its muddled history. But if you look at the meticulously compiled, tried and tested vegetarian recipes in Usha’s Pickle Digest, written and self-published by retired lawyer Usha R Prabakaran, you’ll know that there’s little room for distortion.

“Long waits for vegetables and fruits not in season were quite the norm. The pickle samples, after repeated trials, were given to relatives and friends for their constructive criticism. The pickle needed to be set aside for determining its shelf life, unrefrigerated without the use of chemicals and additives,” says Prabakaran, who lives in Chennai and spent a decade putting the book together.

With the help of an able secretary, Prabakaran narrowed down 5,000 recipes to 1,000 for her book, which was published in 1998 and remains a Bible of sorts for pickle lovers.

Usha’s Pickle Digest encourages you to make a pickle of almost any vegetable, or fruit even. There’s everything from watermelon rind to raw plantain skin to wood apple to popular pickle recipes such as mango and lime, of course. And there are pickles that are native to specific states: from the bamboo-shoot pickle made in Arunachal Pradesh to the famous Gonkura pickle from Andhra Pradesh. The book also dismisses the myth that making pickles is a tedious task, and includes a chapter titled Quick Serve, which deals with instant no-nonsense recipes for vegetables such as cabbage, carrot and ridge gourd that are otherwise often ignored even by diehard vegetarians. In fact, the first pickle that Prabakaran made – mango ginger, which is actually a type of turmeric – is in the assorted section, which also includes several quick recipes.“Mango ginger – totally uncomplicated, tasty, fresh, healthy and so quick to make. Slice up the mango ginger, add in the green chillies cut into rounds, throw in a few strands of fresh green peppercorns, pour in adequate lemon juice, add salt and your pickle is ready,” writes Prabakaran.

Pickles have almost always been the easiest way to make our meals better-tasting. Stuck in a hostel with only semi-mouldy bread for breakfast? Make a dish of avakaya mango pickle and bread. Feeling under the weather with little or no appetite? There’s always khichdi with a dash of lime pickle to awaken the taste buds. Craving a snack? Smear green chilli pickle on a chapati to make a tangy roll. Prabakaran recalls that her mother used to eat freshly cut mango pickle almost like a “poriyal” (side dish), or as an accompaniment to sambar, rasam or curd rice.

There is a telling reference of how well-loved Indian pickles are in Muzaffar Alam and Seema Alavi’s A European Experience of The Mughal Orient: The ‘Ijaz-I-Arsalani’ (Persian Letters, 1773-1778) of Antoine-Louis Henri Polier. Polier, a French-Swiss loyalist of the East India Company, served at the court of Mughal emperor Shah Alam II. Polier, who had worked for the British in South India, Bengal and Bihar, took to Indian pickles and women (he had two Indian wives). The book, a translation of letters that he wrote in Persian to English, speaks of his fondness for green mango pickle in oil. But does it include a recipe? Not a chance. As recently as the mid-Eighties, when Prabakaran began work on her book, pickling tips were generally kept secret by culinary experts. This was when “home chef” wasn’t a skill listed on a blog, or even as an author’s profile in a book. This was when blogs didn’t exist.

When Prabakaran was putting together Usha’s Pickle Digest, she never hesitated to ask anyone for a recipe or a tip. “Nobody was inessential to me – cooks at wedding functions, hotel chefs… I guess the excitement to share was mutual. I used to watch my mother, mother-in-law, relatives, friends and acquaintances at close quarters. More often than not, it was an elaborate pickling session. My passion and their enthusiasm kindled a two-way street for sharing tips they had never shared with anyone before.” Her mother-in-law, who is originally from Andhra Pradesh, the motherland of pickles, podis and chutneys, was a big inspiration. “She really turned out at least one pickle on a daily basis, of course apart from a thogayel. I managed to pick up her style of pickling, but went easy on the jaggery.”

Prabakaran’s generosity shines through in every section of her book. The author has shared every valuable piece of advice she has learnt along the way – be it in how to temper spices (don’t mix asafoetida and garlic since they neutralise each others’ flavours), or how to pick vegetables.

“My father-in-law taught me how to buy most vegetables. Vegetables past their prime he would not buy – he would not compromise on buying them even if they came dirt cheap. It was such fun jostling through the Mambalam Vegetable Market. The minute the train stopped, the vegetables would arrive in huge gunny bags. People would be hustling the vendor to get the best. It was the place we shopped for the much sought after “vadu” (tender mango), both with and without stems. The ones with the stems stayed crunchier for a longer time, but, of course, were disproportionately costlier. I really miss those days. That was a simple, uncomplicated, economical life we led.”

Prabakaran promises to publish a second edition of her book soon, but meanwhile, here’s the recipe for her mother’s favourite pickle.

Mango Ginger – Green Pepper in Lime Juice

Ingredients
125g- Mango Ginger, cut into rings
8g- tender green pepper string
3g- Chilli Powder
30ml- Lime Juice
20g- Salt
5g- Mustard seeds
20 ml- Oil for seasoning

Method
*Combine the sliced mango ginger with the remaining ingredients.

*Heat the oil, add mustard seeds and allow to crackle.

*Pour the seasoning over the mango ginger mixture and blend well

*The pickle is ready for use after two days. It keeps for 10 days and longer in the refrigerator.