Different sources of water have tortured the tongues of tea lovers for centuries and proved problematic for my late grandmother's pickles. But health experts increasingly are realizing the subtle substances that distinguish one locale's water from another — and consequently, a local specialty dish from a the same dish made elsewhere — can be essential to fighting chronic disease.
My grandmother, of blessed memory, was renowned in our small eastern Montana town for her dill pickles. Every fall, she would collect cucumbers from the garden, pickle them in her own mix of brine, pickling spices and dill. Family and friends appreciated receiving her pickles at Christmas and voraciously consumed them.
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| Whether they're half-sour or full-sour, don't underestimate the importance of the water you use for your brine. (photo courtesy of Michal Zacharzewski at StockXchg) |
We moved 1,300 miles to southern Illinois when I was about 9 years old. Without enough time to plant a garden, she bought cucumbers that first fall and proceeded to pickle. To her taste, the pickles were so bad, she never made them again. But my grandfather and I enjoyed them. We pleaded with her the next several autumns to make her classic dills, but she stuck to her refusal for the remaining 20 years of her life.
There was a difference in flavor of water between Montana and Illinois.
"The water here is all wrong," she told me.
She couldn't explain scientifically what made Illinois water "all wrong" for her pickles, so I didn't understand her frustration.
The taste of of water can be influenced by emotional attachment to a particular time and place just as much as it can by the physical attributes of water from different types of sources.
(죽염 jukyeom) has been part of Korea's culinary and medicinal tradition for more than 1,000 years. It's commonly used in facial cleansers, acne treatments and toothpastes as well as consumed in health tonics and sprinkled on food.
