Pickled on Martha’s Vineyard FARM

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The humble pickle doesn’t always get the respect it deserves. Often relegated to the lesser status of mere condiment, these crunchy, variable, vinegar-soaked vegetables blossom into flavor-exploding works of art in the right hands.

Pickle aficionados came together on a sunny Saturday at Rhe FARM Institute at Katama for the first of its late-summer Adult Workshops to learn from experienced pickler Sheila BenDavid. In between dutiful note-taking and cucumber, garlic, and onion chopping, workshoppers snacked on the contents of two brine-filled glass jars, savoring sweet and tart pickle chips swimming in brine, one dripping bite at a time. Although The FARM Institute normally employs its own veggies for its gastronomic experiments, this particular project required just the right size-and-shape cucumbers, provided in this case by another local grower, Fiddlehead Farm.