When vegetables are in season, we eat them madly and at every meal. But often we have more than we can possibly eat (or give away), so we make pickles, a time-honored tradition on farms all over the world. Farm vegetables are pickled not only for storage, but also for variation in flavor.
We use salt, soy sauce, miso, vinegar, rice bran, or sake lees—alone or in combination—to preserve and enhance the vegetables. Pickles meant to be eaten quickly are treated raw, while pickles destined for long-term storage must first be salted and dried for several days (or longer). I could write a whole book dedicated to Japanese pickles, but in the meantime, I have chosen a sampling of fairly easy to execute but deliciously representative farmhouse pickles. The long-term pickles require patience more than hands-on preparation time, and the quick pickles are more like salted vegetables. All pickles are wonderful served alongside a bowl of rice. Accompanied by a bowl of miso soup, that’s the quintessential Japanese meal and follows the ichiju issai formula—one soup, one dish—the basic Buddhist repast, which dates way back in time.
