Cornichons, style maison

It’s the tail end of summer, so let’s make pickles! Not the tiny, vinegary French kind, but home-style dill pickles with an East European flavor. I am dedicating this post to my Ukrainian friend Valya, who returned to Kyiv this week after three-and-a-half years as a war refugee in Paris. It’s as dangerous there as ever, but for her it was just time to go home. I made these pickles for her as part of the picnic I gave her for her two-day bus journey back.

Cornichons, style maison / Home-style dill pickles

With cucumbers still in season, this is a perfect time to try your hand at home-style pickles. The best kind are small cukes, 4-5 inches (8-10 cm) in length. I found some while visiting a friend in Normandy in July, but they are not easily available in Paris. So I used Lebanese cucumbers, which are longer and smoother skinned. This works fine if you cut them into manageable pieces. Standard large cucumbers can also be chopped.

Making the pickles is quick and easy. You bring some sea salt or kosher salt and water to a boil to make your brining liquid, then add a little sugar (optional). While the brine cools, you chop your cucumbers and transfer them to a bowl with the other ingredients — fresh dill, garlic, black peppercorns and coriander seeds. Once the brine has cooled, you pour it into the bowl and set a small plate on top to keep the cukes immerged.

Four hours later you can already try your pickles! They’ll be crunchy, with plenty of flavor. If you’d rather save them for later, you can transfer them to a clean jar and refrigerate for up to a week — no sterilization needed. It’s also possible to preserve the pickles by canning, but this is a far more complicated procedure. Many sites online explain how to do it, if you’re interested.

I first started making pickles back in the late 1970s, at the country home of my boyfriend down in the Gers, in southwest France. A neighbor of his farmed the fields around the house, and one day I noticed there were many small cucumbers lying about post-harvest. I went to see the farmer, a friendly fellow. ‘Claude,’ said I, ‘could I possibly gather a few of your adorable little concombres?’ Claude kindly agreed: ‘Servez-vous‘ (‘Help yourself’).

I took the small cukes back to Paris and went straight to a nearby shop where they sold kosher pickles out of a barrel. The man in charge was happy to give me his recipe, which was much like the one I’m posting except that it also involved … oak leaves. ‘They keep the pickles crisp,’ he explained. One urgent phone call to my boyfriend later, and he was back in Paris the next day with a handful of fresh oak leaves. The pickles got made.

But getting back to Valya, she has been heroic since arriving here in March 2022 after a tumultuous escape from Kyiv as the Russians invaded Ukraine. At the time she was 80 years old and spoke no French or English. She was first lodged in a refugee hotel on the edge of Paris, courtesy of the French government, then transfered to an old folks’ home in the eastern suburbs. Most of the residents were doddering, but Valya was not.

An artist, she went out every day to draw and paint Paris. Here is one of her works. It shows Marianne, the symbol of the French republic, draped in a Ukrainian flag. Valya made the sketch at the Place de la République shortly after a pro-Ukraine demonstration when people still thought the war would be brief. She gave it to me for my birthday three years ago. And the war goes on…

I am indebted to Valya for giving me three and a half years of joy, companionship and conversation (during which time I seriously refreshed my Russian). I fear for her safety but understand her decision to go home — because that is where the heart is.

Happy cooking.