Pickling Season!

According to the Star Tribune, pickling and canning has seen a resurgence in popularity. This is due to a variety of factors. It is a way to eat local produce, even in the dead of winter. A good method of preservation for an overly-bountiful garden harvest. A way of connecting to the grandmother you never knew all that well. Tastiness.


For me, canning is all of these things and more...As hyperbolic as that may seem. In a world where societal structures and bureaucracy have become oppressively complicated while corruption and terror seem to run rampant, canning is the embodiment of nostalgia for a prior, simpler age. Of course it is commonplace for those beyond middle-age to lament the state of the world, of society, of 'these kids today;' but more frequently I seem to be hearing similar despair voiced by members of my own generation. The pace of life has sped up. The machinery has become to complex. Post-post modern society (particularly in the developed world) has gotten tangled in its own gears, smoking and hissing; carrying on with a horrible grinding of metal. The extreme bipartisan politics in America and the current financial collapse. The devaluing of creativity and ideas in place of consumerism and materialism. These are all matters of concern cited by my fellow generation Y-ers. The world today just seems far more complex and frightening than that of our grandparents.

And so, feeling a twinge of insecurity and helplessness in the face of a world in turmoil, I have begun the yearly pickling ritual. If nothing else I can glimpse a vision of an idealized simpler past amongst the cucumber slices and brine.