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The fine line: When is a slaw a pickle?
I learned the quick pickle method from Stephanie Scherzer of Rain Lily Farm and Farmhouse Delivery, who has taught plenty of helpers like me the method of pickling vegetables in the refrigerator instead of a water bath or pressure canner (she uses those methods, too, but she says she likes the bite in fridge pickles).
(Click here to see more photos of the quick pickle party, as well as the refrigerator jam.)
The batches of quick pickles we made (beets, carrots and fennel) couldn’t be confused with slaw of any kind, but a dish of cucumbers marinated in vinegar and sugar that my neighbor happened to make just a day later made me ponder where exactly the line was between a pickle and a slaw.
Her cucumbers were definitely more pickles than slaw, but they were sliced so thinly that just a few more chops of a knife and a little less of the vinegar, and you might think you were eating a mayonaise-free cucumber slaw.
I posed the question on Twitter and Facebook, and got a number of interesting responses:
Pickles are frequently in bigger pieces than slaw, which is usually comprised of shreds or, as New York Times food columnist Amanda Hesser called it, slivers.
Slaw needs a touch of sweetness, says Elaine DiRico, and a pickle leans to savory. “Maybe a slaw is fork food and pickle is finger food?”
Brittany Darwell of He Cooks, She Cooks says, “When I think slaw, I think grated or julienned veggies.
“Pickled vegetables are fully submerged in a brine and then taken out when they’re eaten, whereas a slaw is tossed with the mixture and eaten all together,” she writes.
Pickles also sit in their brine for longer than slaws last in their marinade. @Pfillipp notes that less liquid in slaw means that less flavor is imparted, and more pickle liquid equals more flavor.
But Darwell poses some good questions: Does a slaw require vinegar? Does any acid make something picked? “Say I make a buttermilk, citrus or tamarind dressing for shredded vegetables. It’s still slaw, right? But you wouldn’t call sliced vegetables in those acids pickled, would you?”
On the other hand, Andy Alford, a metro editor at Ye Old Statesman, says a slaw isn’t a slow without mayo or cream of any kind.
This is food geekdom at its best, my friends.
Kimchi and sauerkraut are two dishes that really make this discussion interesting. The vegetables, often cabbage, are shredded and then pickled and fermented. @fooddewd puts it best: Slaw over time is sauerkraut.
Amount of liquid, time in liquid, size of pieces all seem to play a role in determining whether something is a slaw or a pickle, but what other big differences do you see? And remember, we’re not just talking traditional summer coleslaw here…
Retro photo from the National Agriculture Library.
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