Last month, approximately 70 people gathered at the Norwood Room on East Main Street in Radford for a free viewing of the documentary film Food Inc. followed by a panel of local food producers. The event was the first of its kind for Main Street Radford, and the attendees resolved to continue exploring the topic of food justice.

This Saturday, the Radford Farmers Market will host a Local Food Fair(ness) event, complete with a localvore luncheon, cooking demos, and a pickling workshop. Below is a sneak preview of that workshop, written by one of the event’s organizers, Zetta Nicely.

Today I made pickles: cucumber, okra, squash, dilly beans and (rescued from drought like conditions) green tomatoes. As I stood at my kitchen sink—elbow deep in produce and wash water, newly sanitized jars waiting—I felt like I had momentarily mastered time itself.

There is something delightfully existential about canning.

I thought as I worked cutting spears, tearing dill, peeling garlic, pouring vinegar, and packing into jars; thought about the wonder of “preserving.” Time’s process is hindered—death and decay are slowed. I knew that this winter (when I have not seen green in months,) today’s tomatoes will be waiting quietly for me. They’ll greet me with a soft sigh as the jar opens and with my first bite I’ll remember this summer. The dry heat. New friendships. Solid intimacies. The way I prayed for rain. I could feel the bounds of myself stretch forward out of the present. Like time travel. Like a message left in the future for oneself.

I moved backward in time too. I could feel the quiet presence of my foremothers there with me. I remembered my Grandma’s root cellar full of glass jars with summer rainbows sealed inside. I remembered my great Granny’s famous pickles—so crisp, sweet, and salty that I’d sometimes drink the brine straight from the empty jar. I was 6 years old in my mother’s kitchen—the hot air thick with vinegar and dill; yet simultaneously I was every bit of my 29 years—womanish—in my own kitchen, full grown.

I thought too about death; my own death. I thought that others may find comfort in today’s pickles if I died tomorrow. My mother keeps a jar of her mother’s jam in the pantry. It’s not for eating; it’s for finding. Like a hidden surprise—a special treasure. I never knew my grandmother—my namesake, but I too have held that jam for long moments. I’ve found comfort in the glistening weight of something she touched—sealed, unaffected by time—just as she left it. Today, I felt happy to think that the bite and salty tang in these jars may outlive me. That after I’m gone they would continue on, like an uncontrolled laugh—tart, hot and bright on the tongue.

Canning is meaningful work. It’s good to be so close to the things that sustain us. There is no wonder or mystery in grocery store pickles; there is only the impersonal chemistry of acid, salt, and vegetable. Real preserving is more art than science. It is spiritual. A bit of the canner’s soul lingers in each jar, preserved like a gift greater than Time itself.

Easy Refrigerator Pickles

• Measure 1 tsp canning salt in the bottom of a quart jar.
• Add 2 cloves peeled garlic, a hot pepper, and a handful of fresh dill*
• Pack veggies into jars (cukes, green beans, squash, green tomatoes, okra, etc).
• Add about 2 inches of vinegar (Apple Cider or White; make sure it’s 5% acidity) to the jar.
• Top off the jar with water to cover veggies.
• Cap jar and shake to dissolve salt.
• Refrigerate for at least a week – they get better with age.
• Pickles will keep for about 6 months in the fridge, but ours never last that long.

*I like to use the still green dill seed on the flower head – if you don’t grow dill use 1 or 2 tsp dried dill seed. You can also use red pepper flakes but a whole pepper is prettier.

Zetta Nicely is a Psy.D. student at Radford University and has a passion for gardening and keeping it local.