I've started pickling shit

On preservation, Pyrrhus and pictures of Homer Simpson

Marinating and preserving vegetables in brine is currently right up there with listening to King Krule albums on repeat and taking photographs of my cat in my rotation of things I do to preserve (hahaha) my sanity. Not only have I discovered the joys of pickling, I have also discovered the joys of evangelising about my pickled shit to anyone who’ll listen.

This began a couple of days ago. I made avocado and tuna mayo with rice, fresh pickled beetroot (pickled by Tesco, alas), sprunions and some quick pickled carrots and cucumber. This was the start of my foray into a new brine-based enrichment activity. Salt, sugar and distilled vinegar formed the base of my first ever quick pickle brine; it was the day before my maintenance loan dropped and I was trying my hardest to stretch the £11 I had in the bank. I scooped up the mixture of grains and fish and pickled shit in some reasonably-priced toasted seaweed and continued to eat this all day until I ran out of fishy pickle amalgamation. I think I got through three sheets in total.

Yesterday I invested in a new jar and a hefty root of ginger from the market and some rice wine vinegar from the Asian shop on North Road. After getting a little carried away, Googling whether or not you could pickle chicken, I settled on ribbons of carrot, cucumber and ginger, marinated in rice wine vinegar, salt and sugar, then headed to the pub to marinate myself in lager, vodka and wine. I certainly felt like I’d been pickled when my 8:50 alarm went off this morning, considering I’d been drinking neat spirits until about 4. When I did finally heave myself out of bed and saw that my mouth was still purple, I wasn’t sure if vinegary slices of plant matter would sit nicely with the prominent flavour profiles of Corsodyl and ashtray, but peanut butter and pickled cucumber on toast had never tasted better. The rice wine vinegar left a far more sweet, subtle tang than the 40p industrial shit I was using on the weekend, and the carrot and cucumber had this incredible ginger flavour. The ginger could probably have stayed in there a little longer, but alongside the Frube and painkillers I washed down with a flat can of coke, the little nibbles of it I had for post-breakfast-pudding are probably doing my hangover a world of good.

Ginger is great for you. When I’m sick at uni, I blend it with apple juice and turmeric and lemon juice, and have the leftover pulp on porridge. My dad sometimes puts a few slices of ginger in the bottom of a thermos and leaves it to infuse in hot water overnight. If you squeeze some honey into the bottom of your mug before pouring, it’s marvellous. Makes you feel great, unless you’ve got a horrendous chest infection from spending a week using the Northern line, in which case only powerful antibiotics can help you out. But if you’re a bit under the weather it’s probably great.

Simone de Beauvoir talks a lot about projects in her existential philosophy. These projects often seem far less important than they did in the early stages once finished, but their ends have the power become invaluable means for others’ ends. In the case of my newfound love for pickling, this project has become invaluable for another project I started recently, which was initially tagging Niko B on Twitter every time I put an inordinate amount of gherkins on a burger, or had gherkins at all, and has now devolved into tagging him in all my pickling endeavours. I’m not sure what my end goal is there, I’m just along the ride for now. More to come, I’m sure.

I think Twitter should be used more like it was back in the golden days of the internet. I’ve recently gotten into saying things directly to celebrities, but also to the world at the same time. Mutually assured entertainment. The internet is suffering a severe deficiency of mirth and whimsy, and I don’t see a solution coming any time soon, which means we must take it upon ourselves to inject a little light into the ever-darkening chasm. It can never be useless, even if it just entails postponing the inevitable. One of these beacons for me on an otherwise unusable platform is Criminalsimpsons. I haven’t really watched The Simpsons since I was little, but it’s nice to see a few funny little screenshots every day. I find myself going “haha he’s just like me” quite often, even if it’s just a picture of Homer Simpson lying on a bed, like the photo below. The account is worth a deep-dive, I think.

My parting note is something of a call to arms. Firstly, give pickling a go. It’s so good for your microbiome (probably) and it can end up being one of those Sunday activities where if you do enough of them it makes the upcoming week bearable (pickles in the fridge = unlimited tasty little treats). If you have some ginger left over, let it infuse in hot water and serve with honey and lemon. Maybe put some spiced rum or whisky in it, I bet that’s delicious, albeit not as good for you. Never buy your ginger from Tesco, you get the big proper roots at a grocer’s (more importantly, buy local!). Also, babble at politicians and artists on Twitter in an annoying, nonsensical, generic-member-of-the-public sort of way, but not like teenagers do with Ariana Grande, I think a line would be drawn there. Base your self-perception on screenshots from The Simpsons. What else? Drink your housemate’s damson vodka until a silly hour on a Monday night, ask for help, learn how to actually throw a dart, stand up for the people you love, make new dishes that you’ve never had before, explore the streets that you walk past every day but never walk down. Perhaps most importantly, never get coffee from anywhere but Barrio Comida. It’s a quid and delicious. You literally cannot fuck up filter coffee.