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History of Chinese pickles

Chinese pickles have a long history. Back to 1100, Chou dynasty, the word “pickle”, “tsu” in Chinese, means, “salt and incubate”. The first preserved food is the fermented meat mixes with salt and it sometimes mixes with wine and mold. The pickle we refer to today, the pickled vegetables and fruit, practice in common back to sixth century. The most important reason for ancient people to make pickle is to preserve vegetables and fruit because they can preserve for a few months even a few years. People make pickles in the harvest time of vegetables so they can eat them in other time of the year. In Qing dynasty, there are even food specialists whose job is to make and maintain the royal pickles for Chinese imperial court. There are many evidences to support the long history of Chinese pickles. In 1970s, a two-thousand-year tomb was found and there is a woman buried in her kitchen in Han dynasty. The tomb contains various ingredients, includes “cooking pot, cooking instruction and pickles aplenty in crocks.” In the book written during Wei dynasty(386-524), QiMingYaoShu(齐民要术) systematically introduced the way of making pickles at that time.

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Flavor of Chinese pickles

Chinese pickles all need to balance the flavors of sweet, sour, pungent, salt, bitter and savory. There are also spicy pickles with floral notes, such as the Szechuan pepper. However, most Chinese pickles still balance between “vinegar, salt, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, hot chiles, sugar” and the taste of vegetable and fruit. Most pickles need to wait for a few months for the vegetables and fruit to ferment. There are also “quickles (quick+ pickles= quickles)” that people can eat them after a few hours or a few days. For example, people can eat cucumber pickles after it be put into the pickles jar for three hours.

Way to eat Chinese pickles

Chinese pickle can be ate directly from the jar as an appetizer or serve as an ingredient for cooking the whole dish. Before the meal, it serves with wine, beer, sodas or tea to stimulate people’s appetite. People eat the small dishes of Chinese pickles and some snacks to drink and chat. Chinese people can also eat pickles as a dish with steamed rice when they don’t have many dishes. Chinese pickles are used as ingredients to cook the food as flavor base. Pickling ginger and pickling pepper are most frequently used ingredients to make Szhechuan food. It can also help to flavor and enhance the vegetable, meat, poultry and seafood. For example, Chinese cook duck soup with pickling radish to make the soup more delicious.