India has a rich history of making pickles. In fact, for centuries, Indians have loved the whole process of making pickles, from picking the right spices, salts, and flavorings, adding them to the desired food item, fermentation, etc., to distributing the finished pickles in the neighborhood to finally eating the servings. Something delicious in the pickles made in this traditional manners is a taste of centuries. If you too feel that way, there are good reasons why the history of pickle eating in India is nearly as old as settled civilization.
Indians so love pickles because India has always been rich in species needed for preparing pickles, and the spice trade made India the Kingdom of Gold it once was. Being rich in spices, Indian homemakers must have found it natural to make pickles of seasonal food items like mangoes. It is proof of the ingenuity of these housewives that we have thousands of indigenous recipes for making pickles.
A famous Indian saying is that anything eatable can be picked – leaves, fruits, berries, shoots, roots, gourds, chicken, fish, anything, everything. In India, there are records kept by pickle-enthusiasts of thousands of different pickles that you can create.
India has several famous pickles, and the Mango pickle may be the most popular on that list. You can create a hundred different varieties of mango pickles.
Indian history of pickles
Ancient India
Indians have been making pickles for four thousand years now. As far as 2030, years before Jesus Christ was born, Indians made pickles, and the culture has been retained through all those thousands of years.
Ayurvedic and Sangham texts have also mentioned pickles. These include the earliest known mentions of mango pickles.
While one of the crucial advantages of pickles is that they can let you eat your food without heating them and thus without losing valuable heat-sensitive nutrients such as antioxidants, some pickles may require heating these days. Yet, one of the reasons Indians have loved pickles for centuries is that they don’t require heating, and they last over a long time if preserved in vinegar.
One may remark that the story associated with the birth of Kauravas in the ancient epic poem Mahabharta indirectly references the process by which pickles are created.
Medieval India
By medieval times, Indian cuisine richly benefited from coming in contact with Arabic-Persian cuisine. There must have been an exchange of recipes between both countries.
A Kannad work written 400 years ago, back in 1594, was the Lingapurana of Gurulinga Desika, which describes more than fifty different kinds of pickles. They are also mentioned in Sivatatattavaratnakara. The last was an encyclopedia composed in the 17th century celebrating Basavaraja’s king of Keladi.
Chilli peppers were also introduced in India by Portuguese traders in ports on the western coast of Gujrat that were then under the control of the Mughal Empire -black pepper and long pepper were already being introduced used in India since ancient times.
Some cookbooks from the time that have mentioned recipes based on pickles include:
- Manasollasa, written in 1130 A.D.
- Pakadarpana, written in 1200 A.D.
- Soopa Shastra, written in 1508 A.D.
- Lingapurana of Gurulinga Desika written in 1594 A.D.
- Ni’matnama, written in 1500 A.D.
The first three pickle recipes mentioned are green mango, long-pepper, ginger, cucumber, radish, lotus root, turmeric root, lemons, limes, fresh green peppercorns, bamboo roots, etc. Linga Purana of Gurulinga Desika alone mentions over fifty varieties of pickles, while Ni’matnama mentions some very unique pickles made from flowers.
Modern India
Several British writers have mentioned India’s culture of making pickles in passing in different texts. Colonies even created picalilli, their version of the famous South Asian pickle. Several Indian companies have
FAQs
Question: Where does the Indian word for pickle ‘Achar’ come from?
Answer: While the English word ‘pickle’ comes from dutch work for brine ‘peckel,’ one can only speculate over the origins of the Hindi word ‘achar’ though the Persian word for achar is pickle too. Another similar word is Atchara is used for a pickle made from unripe papaya that has its origins in the Philippines.
Question: Are pickles good or bad for my health?
Answer: It depends on the pickle and the person in question. Pickles offer several fantastic health benefits such as helping in losing weight loss, being good for people with diabetes, helping with hydration, etc. However, they are also unfortunately rich in Sodium, and too much Sodium can be harmful to you, specifically if you have blood pressure problems. It can also harm your digestive system and weaken your bones, leaving them vulnerable to specific health conditions. Thus, while pickles are generally good, they are only good in moderate amounts and not all people.
Question: What are pickles traditionally made of in India?
Answer: Indian pickles are traditionally made of brine. This brine may come from several sources, such as sugarcane (also known as ganne ka sirka), a mixture of lime or lemon juice with rock salt, etc. You may use rock pepper to draw out fluids from fruits like lemon or lime. They can also be made by using mustard oil.
Homemade pickles are made by exposing the utensil containing them to summer heat until they are ripe to be eaten.
Question: Is there a difference between tastes of pickles available in India made from the same material?
Answer: Yes. Different people make pickles using different species and use various methods from creation to the final serving of the pickles. Thus, mango pickles from one state may be vastly different in taste from mango pickles from another state. Please don’t give up on pickles because you disliked them the first time you tried them.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that pickles have a rich history in India. And they are one of those things that unite us across the barriers of different states, religions, languages, and cultures. Their health benefits and delicious taste ensure that they will always be part of our cuisine.
