There are two basic kinds of pickles: those preserved with vinegar (or, occasionally, lemon or lime juice or citric acid) and those preserved with salt. Vinegar pickles, also called fresh pickles because they aren’t fermented, usually contain salt as well. Likewise, fermented pickles, which are always made with salt, sometimes include vinegar.

Although salt is not an essential ingredient in canned fresh pickles, a pickle is hardly a pickle without salt. By drawing off excess liquid from vegetables and fruits, salt firms their texture and concentrates their flavors. Salt also balances the flavor of the finished pickle, though the right flavor balance is a matter for each pickler to decide.

Throughout this book, I call for “pickling salt.” This is simply fine, pure granulated sodium chloride. In supermarkets, it’s sold in four-pound boxes as “canning and pickling salt.” When sold in bulk, it’s often labeled “sea salt.” Since the use of the term sea salt is unregulated, however, you may see it on supermarket bins that actually contain table salt. Table salt often contains potassium iodide, a nutrient, and dextrose, a stabilizer, and it always contains chemicals that prevent caking, such as calcium silicate, sodium silicoaluminate, tricalcium phosphate, magnesium carbonate, silicon dioxide, and yellow prussiate of soda. You can identify table salt by stirring a little into a glass of water; it won’t dissolve completely, but will form a whitish haze and

sediment.The white stuff can’t make you sick, but it can muddy your pickling liquid. Potassium iodide, the extra ingredient in iodized salt, can darken your pickles.

Throughout this book, I assume you will use vinegar that is approximately 4- to 6-percent acetic acid, or 40 to 60 grain. Commercial vinegars made in the United States are all standardized within this range. In some of the recipes I specify a particular desired percentage. Among these vinegars, you have several types from which to choose:

• Distilled white vinegar is fermented from a solution of pure alcohol (it’s the alcohol, not the vinegar, that is distilled) and usually diluted to 5-percent acidity
• Cider vinegar is fermented from hard cider, which is apple juice whose sugars have been fermented into alcohol.
• Apple cider–flavored vinegar is now common in supermarkets, some of which sell only this fake cider vinegar.
• Wine vinegar is the traditional pickling medium of France, Italy, Spain, and other countries where wine grapes are grown in great quantity.
• Rice vinegar is the traditional vinegar of the Far East. Mild in flavor, it comes in white, brown, red, and black.
• Malt vinegar, fermented from sprouted barley, is the sharp but pleasant brown vinegar used in English pub–style onions.