Pickling is an ancient art of preservation. Without it, many of our ancestors would’ve died of starvation or malnutrition, especially in the dead of winter. That’s particularly true in the Baltics where freezing temperatures wreak havoc on the soil and vegetation as early as November. So it’s no surprise that some of the most exciting flavors and varieties of pickles are found in places like Latvia.
Photo: Joe Baur
Photo: Joe Baur
Riga’s central market is a massive, sprawling structure of five reconstructed German Zeppelin hangars. In case you were born after the Hindenburg went up in flames in 1937, and don’t have a clue what that looks like, imagine towering, half-cylinder pavilions sticking out of the ground like a series of symmetrical Art Deco camel humps. In total it takes up about 778,000 square feet with an estimated 3,000 stands in and around the market. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognized the importance of this building in 1998 when the international cultural organization enshrined it into its list of world heritage sites along with Old Riga—the historical city center of the Latvian capital.
Fruits and vegetables are generally outside, even in the freezing winter temperatures on a late November morning. Meat, fish, and dairy are, for the most part, separated by terminal, though you’ll spot some intermingling. Honey and bee’s wax, for example, seem to pop up just about anywhere like a whac-a-mole. Then there are the bakeries, some clothes shopping, and a food court that’s modest in size considering the immensity of the market.
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What draws me in and tickles my imagination are the pickles. Sellers, primarily women in their fifties and sixties, are armed with white buckets practically overflowing with pickles—large onions, mushrooms, and cucumbers soaking in that delicious brine like an earthy sponge.
Photo: Joe Baur
Nils Gēlvele is the one leading me around and chatting with the different vendors while I get lost in the sights and cacophony of smells, hoping some of these pickles might very well be on his shopping list. Indeed they are. We procure five small plastic containers to bring back to FERMA, where Gēlvele is the head chef. In a way, he’s just as much the head chef of Latvia itself at the moment, having won Latvian Chef of the Year, courtesy of the Latvian Chef Club.
Photo: Joe Baur
FERMA is about an hour away from opening for lunch when we arrive. I follow Gēlvele through the back alley snow into the kitchen where meal prep is well underway. Valeria Chudova, FERMA’s sous and pastry chef, is working on a variety of desserts, including the honey cake. Later, we finish decorating it together with walnuts, sponge biscuit, and of course, honey.
I watch as Gēlvele starts putting the ingredients together for a salad with fresh and fried Jerusalem artichokes, arugula, hazelnuts, dried cranberries, and blackcurrant vinegar. But what pickle will pair best? Finally, we peel back the plastic lids and start tasting. We’ve got cabbage in different brines ranging from sweet and sour to white wine, and mushrooms soaking in vinegar, salt, and sugar. None of them disappoint, but the raspberry marinated cabbage blows us both away with the rush of raspberry flavor filtered with vinegar sliding across my tongue like it shot out of a water slide.
Photo: Joe Baur
Photo: Joe Baur
I pickle from time to time myself, but I always followed a simple recipe of vinegar, water, salt, and sugar. The idea of using fruit vinegars for brining never occurred to me, and I said as much to Gēlvele. That’s when he rattled off his go-to-formula:
In one 250-milliliter container, he’ll brine his veggies in a ratio of 1/3 raspberry juice, 1/3 white wine, and 1/3 raspberry vinegar—so about 80 milliliters of each liquid—plus 2 tablespoons of sugar and one tablespoon of salt. That’s it. The introduction of fruit vinegars and juice elevates a boilerplate brine to something unique, with little-to-no additional effort. It opens up new possibilities for at-home experimentation with your favorite vinegars and fruity flavors.
“I just started to use marinades like this to get some more interesting flavor to have more balance for a dish,” he says. “I like the taste of berries to balance together with other ingredients.”
For home cooks, Gēlvele says you can experiment with this formula on other vegetables, like cucumber, carrots, beets, cauliflower, and cabbage. “Though maybe not raw potato.”
With the darkness of winter causing chaos with our moods, leaving us yearning for the long days of summer, it’s essential to find fresh flavors to keep life exciting. So grab your veggie of choice, experiment with a new swill of berry vinegars and juice, and turn your lazy bowl of winter sludge into a delectable deluge of deliciousness.
