“My 30-year-old lemon pickle is salty. How can I fix it?” Renu Jain asked on a Facebook food group, bringing my scrolling to a grinding halt.
A 30-year-old pickle.
As a pickle fiend myself, I was intrigued and browsed more than 300 comments on Renu’s post. Half were people as amazed as I was, while the other half offered tips on fixing the pickle’s salt levels, saying they were common in their households.
“My 86-year-old father remembers having pickles that were 15-20 years old,” one said.
“I have a 20-year-old lemon pickle my mother-in-law gave me,” another said. So many pickles, 10 to 50 years old, are eaten sparingly to conserve them for their medicinal properties.
These aged pickles can accompany meals, be eaten on their own or with a little sugar to cut the saltiness, be mixed into breads like parathas, or be diluted with buttermilk.
Pickles, in general, are an integral part of the Indian culinary landscape. Each community (and there are many) in the 28 states and eight union territories pickles local, seasonal produce.
Spices and techniques vary. Some use simple saltwater brine. Others marinate, sun-dry, and/or immerse in lots of oil—sesame or mustard oils being the most common. Bottles of homemade pickles are packed in suitcases for traveling family members, as a spicy condiment when traveling, or as gifts from the family pickle-maker to whomever.
For most Indians, buying commercially produced pickles is frowned upon. A lack of time to make pickles from scratch and a lack of space to sun-dry or store them have led to the rise of commercial pickle-making, but there are always a couple of bottles of homemade pickles in most homes.
And, as I was finding out, some are decades old.
How do they last so long?
“For a pickle to last years, it has to be dry,” said Krish Ashok, author of Masala Lab: The Science of Indian Cooking.
“People figured out that to preserve anything, first, all water needs to be removed. Here’s where sun-drying or dehydration comes in. They also found salty environments to be hostile to bacteria and fungi, and acids help kill microbes. Vinegar is an example. … Similar is citric acid, naturally occurring in citrus fruits like lemon,” he added.
The last technique, he explained, is reducing oxygen to prevent oxidation, and that is where oil comes in. Pickled raw mango submerged in oil lasts a few years, although not decades, because the oil will go rancid.