Essay: Jars of pickle and the whisperings of generations by Sindhu Shivaprasad
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In this personal essay, Sindhu Shivaprasad talks about pickles, her memories of making them at home in childhood and belief of” all things have multiple lives “.
In my Mangalore-meets-Madikeri home in the ever-unifying Bangalore, few things come more heavily laden with nostalgic baggage than the beloved pickle jar — the uppinakai barani, as we call it.
In most homes, tantalisingly marinated citrus, fruits, even seafood, are filled into earthenware pots. But my home is more familiar with an assortment of glass jars saved from a tragic end in the recycling bin by my “all things have multiple lives” mother. This legacy stems from her years in the kitchen of our Nigeria home, bottling preserves in haphazard jars salvaged from a post-olive, post-honey, or post-jam fridge cleanse. We’ve since moved back, and now have access to the quintessential pickle barani, yet the makeshift make-do became a tradition.
