The Urge to Pickle
Food can help you feel connected and grounded – but what if you don't have any ground to call your own? The answer, Polly Burnay writes, can be found amid some vegetables floating in a jar of funky liquid
Moving to a new city requires you to sow new seeds and re-spread your roots. This homemaking process takes time. What I didn’t quite anticipate upon uprooting myself from London for a new life in Glasgow, however, was an urge that bubbled within… the urge to pickle.
My pickle obsession began two years ago when I was asked, thrice weekly, to recite the seven pickled veg in the London restaurant I was waitressing: romanesco, carrot, onion, celery, fennel, cauliflower, red pepper. Head chef’s eyes piercing mine, I regurgitated them quickly, scathing myself whenever I missed the goddamn cauliflower. Pickles followed me into unemployment (naturally, since they had become part of my weekly routine). And in my unrelenting, fruitless Glasgow flat hunt, the only entity I could house far more easily than myself was a vegetable.
I started – and failed – with sauerkraut, producing a sulfuric stink which frankly felt selfish to house in my friend’s mum’s kitchen. Halfway through a drunken falafel wrap from the local Lebanese restaurant, I became mesmerised by the magenta cuboid fingers (turnip torshi) fondling my falafel and thereafter found a renewed sense of purpose pickling pink radishes and purple beetroot to mimic them. My obsession ended when the sauerkraut pastry from the Transylvanian shop on Victoria Road no longer tasted like inspiration. It was official. I’d found a flat.
Humans have pickled with vinegar since Mesapotamia in 30BCE; lacto-fermented pickling was born in ancient China approximately 9000 years ago. The Victorians were so enamoured by pickles that they became a status symbol. Heinz leapt on the opportunity to capitalize, creating a resin pickle pin and slogan: “A man who found himself in a pickle… was saved by one”. And in my state of jobless, couch surfing limbo, I think the joy of pickling – of holding uprooted veg in space and time – might have saved me.
Polly Burnay (she/her) is an artist and illustrator based in Glasgow. She is about to start working towards her solo show which is due to take place in May 2025 at Cass Art, Glasgow
This article is from issue one of GNAW, our new food and drink magazine dedicated to sharing stories from across Scotland’s food scene. Pick up a free copy from venues across Scotland, and follow GNAW on Instagram @gnawmag