A Real Pickle

01.12.07

In many societies, there's a point where food traditions migrate from the palace to the public sphere. I found a clear example of this on a recent visit to Istanbul with my friend Ihsan. One day, he decided we should visit his favorite pickle store. It was news to me that there were stores that sold only pickles, much less that there were enough for him to have a favorite, but I was game. The shop, called Asri Tursucucu (Asri Pickle Store), was tiny, but it had an amazing variety of pickles lined up in giant glass jars—everything from standards like tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers to whole pickled pears, ears of corn, even pine cones. The owner, a taciturn middle-aged gentleman with thick glasses and a bristling mustache, explained that, like most other pickle stores in the city, this one was established in the late 1930s. At that time, the professional cooks who had been trained in the intricacies of imperial cuisine in the houses of powerful Ottoman officials began to lose their positions. Without homes of their own, some made their livings as itinerant picklers, going from house to house of the new rich, staying a week or so at each one and making enough pickles, preserves, and tomato pastes for the rest of the year. A few, including the founder of Asri, eventually started small storefronts to sell their wares—and today their customers still benefit from their handed-down craftsmanship.

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