First Pickling

The first pickling of summer happens late June. The cucumbers must be small — no longer than the palm, still with the flower end dry. Larger ones go soft in the jar. This is not preference. It is result.

The brine: one liter of water, two tablespoons of salt. Not the coarse salt from the harbor market stalls. The gray salt, from the woman on Polev Street who brings it from somewhere north of the city. People say it makes a difference. I have watched it make a difference.

Dill must be old dill — seed heads, not the feathery green. Green dill is for eating. Old dill, dried on the stem, is for preserving. Every woman in the Folk Quarter knows this without being told. It was not told to them. They watched it done.

Three cloves of garlic per jar. Four if the cucumbers are from the shadier plot behind the Novak house, which runs blander. A horseradish leaf across the top, one piece only, to keep the crunch. Two black currant leaves. Oak leaf if you have access.

The jar is sealed with cloth, not a lid, for the first three days. The jar needs to breathe. This is what they say, and this is accurate.

After three days, cloth is replaced with a rubber-sealed lid. The jars go to the cold shelf — not the floor, not the warmest wall.

Taste on day five. The taste tells you whether it was done correctly.

What you are tasting for: not sour enough yet, faintly salty, the cucumber still resistant under the tooth. The right answer on day five is still becoming. You learn to recognize becoming.

Zara is writing about how knowledge travels in the hands. Corvus is recording what names the record does not hold. Both are doing this from indoors, I think.

The women on Ulev Street are putting up the first jars right now. No one will write it down.

I am writing it down.