Lucas Conlon, a student in Penn State's Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, created today's Slice of Pennsylvania on WPSU. It's a series that highlights the everyday sounds and stories of life in central and northern Pennsylvania.
Conlon talked the hosts of an “Intro to Pickling” class at Penn State as they made some pickles.
For the best experience, we recommend listening to this piece using the play button above.
Alex Schultes:
Right now, I'm cutting vegetables.
Brenna Fitzpatrick:
Hi, I'm Brenna Fitzpatrick. I always make pickles using cucumbers, dill and garlic from the Student Farm each summer. My favorite thing to pickle are cucumbers, just because I love cucumbers. I love dill pickles. A pickled red onion is super easy. You can do a quick pickle with that, and it's a really easy way to like, elevate a salad and just put it on any meal to get an extra bit of flavor.
Okay, what makes a pickle good is the crunch a hundred percent. If it's not crunchy, then what are we doing?
I hope people just learn skills that will hopefully make them a little bit more comfortable in the kitchen and in their own homes, fermenting things, pickling things, and also just like being creative in the kitchen.
Alex Schultes:
Now I'm opening the jar.
Hi, I'm Alex Schultes.
I've been on like an artisan journey, where I've been trying to make a bunch of things. I've been getting into pickled carrots. They're really good. I definitely think the ratios of your spices is where you can go wrong. I feel like if you don't have a good dill, why would you even make a pickle?
I would have to say the weirdest thing I've ever seen pickled is the chamoy pickle. It's like gummy, sour, warheads. There's the chamoy itself, which is a sauce.
The other thing that I think is super-duper important that students should learn is how bread and butter pickles stink. There's nothing worse than biting into a pickle and it being bread and butter.