I’ve been struggling to think of some final blog topics to write about. Many ideas have some to me, but none of them really interested me. But then I went to the south dining commons for dinner and saw the sign for “In a Pickle”, which got me thinking. How does a pickle become a pickle?

Click on this pickle, it will dance for you!

I know that pickles are actually cucumbers that are put into a solution for a stretch of time until they become pickles. But I wanted to know more; what happens in that solution? And why do the pickles taste sour? So I turned to the Internet, and this is what I have found out.

Pickles have actually been around for thousands of years. Surprisingly, pickles actually helped in the Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America. Pickles were kept on board of the ships making the journey because they were high in vitamin C. The crew members were made to eat them to prevent scurvy, which is caused by a vitamin c deficiency. But back to the science of pickles…

Cucumbers are a fruit that do not stay good for long; bacteria grow on them within days of being picked, which make them rot quickly. In order to slow down this process, we submerge either whole or sliced cucumbers into a solution called brine. Brine is just water with Sodium Chloride dissolved in it. By putting the pickles in this mixture, you “create special conditions… that allow a unique class of “good” bacteria, called lactic acid bacteria, to colonize your cucumbers”. This process is called Fermentation.

During fermentation, we attempt to have the new and good bacteria grow on the cucumber in order to out-grow the bad bacteria before it can do any harm. This very helpful video from NBC Learn helps to further explain the whole process. These good bacteria feed on the starches from the cucumbers and then create sugars, which they use as a source of energy to repeat the process. In turn, the microbes give off alcohols, carbon dioxide, and lactic acid. These bi-products then change the acidity of the brine, and lower the pH. This increased acidity makes the water more sour, thus making the cucumbers more sour.

After the cucumbers have sit in this brine for long enough, the eventually becomes pickles. Now that they have been preserved, they can last in their jars for months or even years depending on their storage. I find this to be a really cool process and I am glad I looked into it. The next time I am enjoying my burger with pickles, I will feel quite knowledgeable about how my pickle came to be.