Pickle Talks with Jess Wang

By Farrah Su, Food Roots Project Specialist

(Pictured: Jess Wang demonstrating a Bok Choy Pickle recipe, using Local Bok Choy sourced from Food Roots.)

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to sit down with local food advocate and entrepreneur, Jess Wang, founder of Pique-Nique and Picklé Pickle Co., and learn more about her experiences in pickling. Jess has been a long-time supporter of Food Roots, being one of the first people to sign up in 2013 for our, now on-pause, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Program. 

In addition to talking with her, I was able to attend one of the wonderful pickling classes that she hosts in the Pickle Patio! Read until the end for a delicious recipe that incorporates #LocalBokChoy, that is perfect for the incoming Fall weather!

Disclaimer: Questions and answers have been edited for clarity.

(Pictured: Pickle Pickle Co Workshop signage.)

Hello, may you please introduce yourself and share a bit about how you got involved with APIFM?

My name is Jessica Wang and I have a background working in the food industry and in kitchens starting with pastry and later working in savory kitchens. From there, I was a volunteer of API Food Movement, 3 years ago! As a volunteer, I had an opportunity to help connect this new program, before it was even called Food Roots. They asked if I could help connect them with chefs who are already established and who might be interested in connecting to farmers and sourcing produce from them. So I started with that as one of my tasks as a volunteer and then we started talking more about what I'm passionate about – which was pickles. The very first class I taught was with them and from there on, I've expanded. Friends who have spaces have invited me to teach fermentation workshops and it's been really fun developing a curriculum about pickles and probiotics and overall mindfulness and wellbeing through diet that is mostly plant-based.

You have created a series of “seasonally-inspired and community driven” pickling workshops called, Picklé Pickle Co. How did you come up with the name Picklé Pickle and what does Picklé mean?

So it's pronounced Picklé (“peek-lā”) and when I tried registering that name, we found out that accents are not allowed when you register names in the USA. So when I got my paperwork back, because I sent it in by mail, it didn't have the accent. I contacted them and I was like, “Hey, there's a typo,” they told me that there was no typo because they don’t add accents. So on a piece of paper it just looked kind of sad and I felt it would be misunderstood if my brand was just “pickle”. Then I decided I would give it a little more. It made sense to make it “Picklé Pickle Co” because then even without the accent, it just has more to it and it's more fun. It has this energy about it. 

Picklé is not a real word; it is a made-up word that one of my best friends, who happens to be my sibling, came up with. It just simply came from a conversation about what I had been working on and how I really think I should create a brand around pickles and pickling. At the end of the conversation, they were like, how about “Picklé” and it made sense. It's got energy. It sounds kind of bubbly, it's really playful, and it's based on reality. 

Did you have any experiences with Bok Choy, growing up or now, that can share with us?

I did grow up eating bok choy! My family is Chinese and my parents grew up in Taiwan, met here, the U.S. and raised our family here. We ate a lot of Chinese food growing up. I think Bok Choy was something that we ate at restaurants often. I don't remember my mom preparing it at home like as a kid. But I do remember I have memories of it being amazing with mushrooms. That texture combination like absorb flavors differently. Like the sauce gets more concentrated in the mushroom and then you have that like really nice juicy crunch from the bok choy stem. They work so well together.

(Pictured: Bok Choy (Baby) soaking in water.)

(Pictured: Jess cutting Bok Choy in halves.)

I see at a lot of your workshops, you try to use locally sourced produce and shop at farmer’s markets. Why do you choose to shop local? 

The impact, environmentally, is something that I think about. The transportation of what's grown and how it gets to the customers. And of course with the farmer's markets, you're getting things directly from people who grew it. So there's less impact with cars and pollution. We can't avoid it completely, but if we can reduce it or minimize it, that's like, the best we can do. That and also cutting out the middleman, buying local you get the produce directly from the growers. 

When did you become aware of the importance of buying local produce?

It was in college. I had this lovely roommate who invited me to go with her to a farmer’s market. That was when I lived on the East Coast when I was in school in Baltimore. And it's maybe not the most ideal produce city example, but where there are values attached to things is what I think is most important. When I came back to LA, my sibling, Jon, who is the one who came up with the Picklé brand name, was living in Alhambra and introduced me to the farmer's market there. It's the first farmer's market in LA that I ever went to, as a 20-something year old.

Even outside of farmers markets, the time I spent with my grandma was educating me on what was in season. When I was in my early twenties, I would go and help my grandma with things around the house. She lives in this big apartment building, but she has this tiny patio with some access to the ground. She grew this tree that I've been trying to figure out what it's called in English. But in the springtime, these new leaves come out and she would make me go pick them and then we would make scrambled eggs with them. In Chinese, the tree is called Xiang Chun. I tried looking it up and it might be some kind of Mahogany, but I am not sure. Like I need to look it up again now. So at that time I didn't really connect it to this bigger conversation of seasonality in my head, but that was a seasonal produce item, you know? It was seasonal produce that was growing in her yard – that isn’t really available anywhere else. 

Switching over to pickling, what would you say are the health benefits and why do you want other people to know about Pickling?

Something that most people are not aware of about pickles, is that they are made through a process of natural fermentation. This means that they're more beneficial to you than eating raw or cooked vegetables. When you let vegetables go through the process of fermentation, the microorganisms that are converting the sugars into lactic acid are making vitamins and nutrients more available to you. There's a term for that, it's called bioavailability. So your body can absorb more of the good things that are already exist in vegetables that would otherwise just pass through your system.

You can absorb them better because of this pre-digestion that happens through the microorganisms. In a way, they're kind of unlocking these doors to these nutrients. And that's, of course, stuff that I didn't personally discover, but just through reading other writings about fermentation. I learned a lot through Sandor Katz. He's been studying this for decades and has been sharing all of this information. He's still experimenting and he's truly an inspiration and becoming more a little like a mentor figure to me.

(Pictured: Jess measuring salt as part of the demonstration.)

(Pictured: Jess demonstrating the Bok Choy Pickle Recipe.)

What is a myth about pickling you would like to debunk for people?

I have noticed from teaching and having conversations with people who have come to some of my workshops, that there is some fear that prevents people from trying it. I'm glad that some of those people end up at my workshops to overcome their fear or just to get educated so that they don't have to live in fear of pickling. It's really not hard. You do need to learn some basics, like ratios of salt to create the right environment for the healthy bacteria to thrive and to keep the bad bacteria away. But most people, I think even thinking back on when I first started, there was some anxiety involved because you don't want to make something that will cause you to get sick. Or make something that will go to waste, because the whole idea of pickling is that you're preserving and you want that to be successful. So if you're going through the trouble of putting together this little aquarium of, you know, “invisible pets”, you want to make sure that they have a healthy existence because you will also benefit from that. 

I think when you look at it that way, that you are making an environment for this, this kind of like little worlds – it's really precious. But just with some basic knowledge, you can be assured that it'll be fine. It's easy to access that information online these days, but it also helps to learn with other people and to learn additional tips from someone who has experience and has who done some troubleshooting too. ‘Cause sometimes things go wrong and you just learned from those experiences. There's yeast sometimes and it's not all bad – you can eat some of it but it'll change the flavor. It’s really interesting.

From my understanding of pickling, it is a very accessible way to “cook” something, because it doesn’t require heat. Would you recommend this type of cooking for people who may not have access to heat sources, like an oven, microwave, or stove?

Yes! So you don't need a heat source in general. You don't need a heat source for basic vegetable fermentation, but you might use the sun in some recipes. There are some cultures that do pickling in the sun, so that's something most of us have like at least part of the year. We really just need the vegetables, some water for cleaning the vegetables and then salt and some kind of container. Yeah, that's it. 

For you, what attributes of a vegetable makes it good for pickling?

I usually go for vegetables that I like to eat raw and wouldn't go for something that requires heat to break it down to be digestible or delicious. Not to say you can't ferment those, but I just prefer the texture and taste of those kinds of vegetables – I like fresh and crunchy. I'm thinking… eggplant is something I didn't grow up eating pickled, but in some cultures, like in Japanese cooking, there's pickled eggplant. That's a really unusual one to me; it's just not part of my taste memory. So, I tend to go for the really juicy, crunchy stuff, like carrots, green beans, and cabbage of course, is very common and widely accepted in the world. There are some that change a lot in texture [when pickled] like peppers, so I'm thinking of sweet peppers. They add great flavor, but their cell structure changes a lot when they get fermented. So I would say those I would use to flavor, in combination with something that holds up better. 

I could say that I categorize the vegetables that I pickle to having mostly roots and stem. So usually if they have those features, they're juicy and crunchy. I have pickled bok choy as a Kimchi before and that came from me learning more about the family of vegetables that’s called brassicas. Cabbage, bok choy, broccoli, cauliflower – they're all family. So when I learned that, I thought, if I can't get napa cabbage right now but I want to make some fresh kimchi, then I should try its cousin vegetables. So I decided to give Bok Choy a try and it turned out so yummy and very juicy. The texture is great because you have that combination of the stem part and then the more silky leaf section.

(Pictured: Jess mixing Bok Choy (Baby) and salt.)

(Pictured: Salted Bok Choy being stuffed into a small jar.)

Do you have a favorite produce to pickle?

It would be beans! Oh yeah, the green or long bean varieties.

My favorite is their flavor, their crunch, and there's just something about when you take some out of a jar and you put it on a plate or on whatever you’re about to eat, that gives it this fun energy. There are many different shapes and colors out there, but with the beans there's something about them that's just really direct. I think part of it is that you make one cut or two cuts and then you have the pickle shape. So it's a really kind of satisfying relationship to have with that kind of shape.

Not to get too nerdy about shapes but because I do have to think about efficiency in whatever I'm making, that is part of what goes into the recipe. You can even pickle them whole – I'm thinking of the long bean. You don't have to cut them before you pickle, you can cut them later. So they really are kind of ideal because they can save you time. We are putting time into preserving them, but you don't have to invest a ton of time. Whereas if you're working with, let’s say a root vegetable that has skin, you need to peel and then you gotta cut it. That takes a lot of time. Although I love that whole process, in the summertime when it's really warm and you don't really want to work too much – you want to be kind to yourself in this heat – you are able to get away with that with long beans and other green beans – it's pretty great. So many great qualities about them.

What is your process in creating new pickling recipes?

Sometimes there's a lot of chance involved. And being someone who works at a grocery store for my day job, I'm around a lot of produce so I sometimes will just have ideas come to me because I'm around these materials, essentially. These are all the materials that I work with. I will have these ideas of what to put together and sometimes, I'll be referencing something that I ate, like this combination of chilis, basil, and beans or sometimes, I don't know where the idea came together. Sometimes it can be because someone grew, let's say calamansi, and I met her for breakfast and she brought me a bag of them. If I was already thinking about making a pickle with carrots, then I would put them together just because I have it and I want to extend its usability. It’s about taking an opportunity and just being open minded about what can work well together and just trying it out – experimenting.

Would you say there's a season or time of year that is best for pickling vegetables? What season do you like to create pickles?

My experience as a pickler has mostly been in southern California. It's kind of a limited view and my answers are kind of based on being a spoiled brat, because we have long growing seasons and it makes some people jealous. I don't want to make people jealous. But I hope that people who don't live here have an opportunity to travel here and experience it at some point in their lives. I personally don't feel that there is a “best season”, but I do lean towards the summer produce. I also love all of the winter things, but there is something special about summer. It's extra juicy – with melons: cucumbers, and watermelons. And all the things that grow during winter, most of them are still around during the summer months. There are some that are missing like Napa and you know, good cauliflower and Broccoli, but they're not gone for too long.

(Pictured: A few stalks of locally sourced Bok Choy (Baby) placed next to small jar contained the salted Bok Choy in the start of the pickling process.)

Thank you so much to the local pickling aficionado, Jess Wang, for talking with me and sharing her experiences with locally sourced Bok Choy and journey in pickling.

Follow Jess and her pickling adventures here: Picklé Pickle Co

BOK CHOY is a cold weather vegetable, which means it can withstand cooler temperatures. In California, Bok Choy can be available all year-round! This makes it a perfect vegetable to incorporate in your daily diet as well as one that is fun to try in various recipes. 

Fermentation Educator, Jess kindly shared a delicious recipe with us to use with Local Bok Choy!

Share with us your finished #LocalBokChoy pickles!

(Pictured: Jess Wang & Mama Peggy)

SUAN CAI

Presented by Mama Peggy & Jess Wang of Picklé Pickle Co.

• 2 ⅔ lbs cai/choy of your choice (bok choy, napa cabbage, yu choy, etc…)

• 2 tablespoons sea salt, or flavored salt such as Taiwanese red yeast or Japanese seaweed salt

• Note on ratio of salt to cai/choy: Use 2.5% sea salt by weight for any amount of vegetable

• For serving: drizzle sesame oil and soy sauce to taste

Remove bruised or torn outer leaves that are visibly compromised, rinse select vegetables under running water, and drip dry in colander. If very dirty, allow to soak in a bowl of water for 5 minutes until soil is loosened, then rinse off. Trim stem ends and cut though the bottom half of cai with wide stems such as large bok choy (or for cabbage, cut about 3 inches up from the base, then tear the halves apart. Repeat once more so you end up with quarters).

Allow cai to dry for 1 hour up to 12 hours in moderate temperature, in a single layer on a plate, basket or tray. Sprinkle with salt, evenly, making sure to get in the layers of leaves. Place in a clean, dry container and cover with an airtight lid. Check on it in 2 hours and place a clean weight on top to submerge the cai. Taste in 2 days - should be mildly tart! Refrigerate at this point. Cut cabbage quarters into bite size segments to serve, about 1 ½ inches. Serve as a refreshing side dish dressed with a drizzle of sesame oil and a gentle splash of soy sauce,  or add to brothy soups!

Recipe adapted from ‘Chinese Cuisine’ by Huang Su-Huei