watermelon thumping

[victor steinbok]

Russians and other assorted ex-Soviets pickle all sorts of watermelons
and watermelon parts. The ripe ones are reduced to rinds and rinds
pickled in vinegar-sugar syrup or vinegar alone, if the rinds are
thick enough (pencil-thick rinds are useless). Whole small ripe
watermelons are cracked, brined and fermented. Unripe melons suffer
all of these treatments and more. Generally, Russians will pickle any
vegetable matter in any of a number of methods (salt, acid, sugar,
oil; marinated, cured, brined, fermented--or any combination) with or
without spices. (And don't get me started on smoked products.) There
are different names for different methods (i.e., there is no single
"pickle" descriptor). I suppose, Russians have 30 different words for
"pickle"--and they are all used as vodka chasers. Eskimos would be
linguistically jealous if they found out. ;-)

VS-)

On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 5:57 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 5:47 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> *unripe* watermelons for pickling.
>
> Uh, y'all don't just pickle the left-over rinds of *ripe* watermelons?
> IME, doesn't anybody have any truck with unripe melons.
>
> --
> -Wilson

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