to those millions of women (and it was mostly women) who had to get all the summer’s produce into some semblance of preservation. Pickling in the summer is a bitch. How did they do it? Seriously. You just have to. There’s nothing to be done about it. When produce is ready it needs putting up.
I had the luscious convenience of air conditioning and, still, pickling took a lot of effort. It was blazing hot and I was sweating more than one might comfortably want to be sweating around food prep (keep that in mind when you’re eating in a restaurant in the summer). And I cannot just keep all the summer’s batch of cucumbers until I have the entire crop and then pickle them all at once. They need to be pickled as they come along. My cucumbers, there are several varieties, are coming in hither and tither. Peppers, cucumbers, green beans. Peaches if I ever get any—they are very near to ripe and it seems the squirrels cannot eat them all despite their best efforts so I will have to put them up as well. I don’t think you pickle them (a quick peek at the google tells me I can). Oh god.
