Grandma’s Secret Ingredient Used in Pickled Vegetables (Ana Beatrise Apse-Paese)

“My grandma, Eunise, pickles vegetables on the regular. Cucumber, carrots and cauliflower. She adds onion and garlic and her secret ingredient are cloves. She cooks them in water, vinegar and salt (two cups of vinegar for four large cucumbers) until the cucumber loses its green hues and then stores it in jars in the fridge. My grandparents eat pickled vegetables everyday at lunchtime. As kids, me and my siblings were never fond of pickled vegetables, but my mom, Leila, has always had quite Latvian tastebuds, so, when we went out to eat burgers, we would all pick out the pickles to give to her, who gladly ate them. As a grown-up, I now appreciate my grandma’s pickles and reproduce them in my small apartment in Germany, where I study.”

Story submitted by Ana Beatrise Apse-Paese. Photos are from Ana Beatrise Apse-Paeses personal archive.