Food

There's a pattern developing. First it was the juniper pickled herrings from Clarke's fishmonger at Musselburgh- the tastiest I've ever eaten, even if this establishment is trumpeted by the appalling Clarissa Dickson-Wright. A few days ago it was the large vacupacked bag of kimchi from the Chinese supermarket, mostly eaten in a single sitting. Bought a jar of brinjal pickle at the same time, but it's disgustingly sweet and nowhere near hot enough. Yesterday I was passing the Turkish deli and just had to buy a jar of pickled chillis and another of mixed pickles. Now H. tells me she has a glut of runner beans in the garden, and I'm salivating at the thought up putting some of these up in mason jars with pickling spice, garlic and chillis. After 6 months or so they'll still have an al dente crunch, but be infused with piquant flavour.

Kimchi, for those not familiar, is pickled Chinese cabbage with garlic and chilli, traditionally fermented by burying it in an earthenware pot. It's full of lactobacillus and Vit C, but may also be a culprit in the high rates of gastrointestinal cancers amongst Koreans. Should I become of a victim of its pleasures, I'll die happy with the prickle of capsaicin on the tongue.

The low-temperature 'cooking' processes for the herring and the kimchi are different, though both often involve salt and acid. Kimchi is fermented, with the lactic acid produced by anaerobic organisms contributing to the preservation process. On the other hand, the chemistry of fish pickles such as seviche or rollmops is more like conventional heat-cooking; the acid lime juice or vinegar attacking and denaturing the protein content of the fish.