A Czech Pickle Tale...

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Pickle days

In the height of their season, cucumbers tell us how times are changing

By Iva Skochová
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
August 02, 2006


"If, as the saying goes, deep summer is when laziness finds respectability,
then perhaps the Czech symbol for these dog days - the cucumber - deserves a
bit more admiration.

After all, we all find ourselves in the thick of what is known here as
okurková sezóna, the cucumber season: a time of long weekends, short
workdays and that constant challenge to try to get anything done in this
city after, say, noon. Forget Fridays.

Journalists dread this time.

"It's when the Loch Ness Monster articles usually appear," says Karel
Hvízïala, a syndicated columnist.

Around this time of year Czechs - girding for the long winter ahead - have
historically headed out to their summer cottages to pickle, well, just about
anything: mushrooms, cheese, fish and especially cucumbers.

But all that looks to be a thing of the past: Pickle consumption is down 50
percent since 1992, the Czech Statistical Office says. And those still
eating them are just as likely to buy a jar at Tesco before beating a path
out of town.

"You can buy anything any time now," says Vdra Tomeèková, a seasoned pickle
maker from south Moravia. "Instead of growing pickles, people turn their
gardens into lawns."

Thus, the cucumber, whether pickled or garden-fresh, has become another
barometer with which to gauge the changes in Czech tastes and traditions
since the fall of communism.

Home gardens now compete with hypermarkets. The family unit - a key
ingredient to pickling weekends - is spread out, the kids studying in
Germany or working in the United Kingdom. Czechs still disappear from the
cities every August, but they are just as likely to be heading for Croatia
as for their country cottages.

"Today's society offers new values and new possibilities for
self-fulfillment," says Alena Køízková, a gender analyst at the Czech
Academy of Sciences.


A matter of taste

Just don't tell the older generation that the homemade pickle is perishing.

Some diehards still make them by the bucket load in the country's small
towns and villages, where the specifics of spice and flavor are taken
seriously, and where another family's recipe is still something to doubt
and, perhaps, hold in disdain.

Tomeèková confesses she cannot stand the pickles her neighbor makes. "They
are hardly edible. Way too much dill!" she complains.

The Czech contribution to pickling dates to the 16th century, when the area
around Znojmo, south Moravia, started growing a type of small cucumber,
cucumis sativus, and marinating it in spiced vinegar.

The famous sweet-and-sour recipe of Znojmo has remained the benchmark for
pickle makers countrywide, although families have altered the recipe
according to their own tastes.

"Some like them sweeter; others add extra vinegar, garlic or hot pepper,"
says Tomeèková. In her town, Hulín, it is still typical for a family to make
about 60 to 120 jars a year. "Pickling at home means huge savings."

Bozena Podrouzková, 79, has been growing and pickling her own cucumbers for
the past 45 years. Her specialty is size, she says.

"The smaller they are, the better," the Prague native says.

But the work involved in preserving, let alone growing, cucumbers mystifies
27-year-old Kateøina tiháøová, another Praguer.

"It's a complete waste of time to buy cucumbers, bringing them home,
cleaning them with a brush and then pickling them, when you can buy them in
the store," she says.


The Polish pickle

Some say the beloved Czech pickle is under attack from foreign imports, yet
another casualty of open borders and easy trade that came with European
Union membership two years ago.

If the French are afraid of the so-called Polish plumber - the foreign
worker who comes and takes local menial jobs - then some in the Czech
Republic appear fearful of the Polish pickle.

Each year, increasingly more of these beloved snacks in Czech stores are
imported, especially from Poland, industry observers say. While in 2001 only
about 6 metric tons (6.6 short tons) of cucumbers meant for pickling were
imported, the amount has increased tenfold since then.

Zdendk REzièka, director of the State Agricultural Company, says the influx
of cheap pickles from Poland is putting Czech packagers and small farmers
out of business. Today, cucumis sativus crops take up only about one-tenth
of the fields they did 10 years ago.

Znojemské okurky, a company that set the standard for the famous Czech
gherkin, went bankrupt in 2002.

"The quality suffers but cost is more important to people than taste,"
REzièka says.


Jarring trends

Parsimony is not driving the decline in Czech consumption. Indeed, even at
around 25 Kè ($1.12) a jar of average pickles in a supermarket, buying
pickles can still add up for families that consume several jars a week.

As with many social trends, the forces are harder to identify. Perhaps
jarring garden produce is just not seen as fashionable these days. (Though
no politician as yet has dared wage war against the cucumber, like former
U.S. President George H. W. Bush once did against broccoli).

One thing sociologists are certain of is that pickling remains, as it always
has been, largely in the realm of the woman.

Køízková, the sociologist, says women spend about the same time on household
chores as they did 20 years ago. The number of tasks has decreased, she
says, but there is a higher standard for everyday housework - and that's
time-consuming, leaving less time for preserving cucumbers.

"Commercials tell women what an ideal household should look like. There are
100 products for making a toilet bacteria-free," she says. "There are no ads
for pickling."

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