Well Worth Their Salt

Orange County, CA — Chabad Jewish Center of Mission Viejo is offering a workshop on making kosher pickles to appease an apparently growing appetite.

About a year ago, Rabbi Shmuel Marcus met an 86-year-old man who said he was one of the last kosher pickle makers.

Intrigued by the story, the rabbi, director of Los Al Hebrew High in Los Alamitos, began teaching students at the school how to make kosher dills.

Word spread fast. Parents found out what their kids were doing and they, too, wanted to become pickle makers. It took off in a way that Marcus had not expected.

“There was a whole pickle culture that I had not known about,” Marcus said.

Marcus began traveling and spreading pickle knowledge all over, including places like Georgia, New Jersey and Florida.
Now he is bringing the super crunchy, delectable kosher dill pickle to Mission Viejo.

Chabad Jewish Center of Mission Viejo is hosting The Art of Kosher Pickle Making on Wednesday. Interested pickle makers will learn how to make their own pickles and will customize a jarful of pickles to take home.

The workshop, which Marcus compares to a wine-tasting party with pickles, will test people’s pickle palate as they sample and compare kosher pickles to non-kosher pickles.

A kosher pickle is kosher because of the kosher salt that is used, said Marcus.

The non-kosher pickles are the non-refrigerated pickles that sit on store shelves and are packed with preservatives.

After tasting the varieties, pickle makers will be able to make their own pickles with dill, garlic, salt and pickling spice, to taste.

“How you like it, that’s how you make it,” said Marcus.

For Rabbi Zalman Kantor, of the Chabad Jewish Center, this will be a new experience that he says combines education and fun.

“It is amazing to see how the kosher pickle has evolved into an entire culture,” said Kantor. “People will be able to learn not only how to make their own kosher pickles, but also how to spot one as well.”