What's the Difference Between Fermenting and Pickling?
Both fermenting and pickling are ancient food preservation techniques — the confusion arises because the categories actually overlap with each other. Some fermented foods are pickled, and some pickles are fermented. Learn the similarities and differences between these age-old preservation methods and get inspired to make your own.
What Is a Pickle?
A pickle is simply a food that’s been preserved in a brine (salt or salty water) or an acid like vinegar or lemon juice. This includes foods like beets, onions, peppers, and even eggs.
What Is Fermentation?
A fermented food has been preserved and transformed by benign bacteria. Usually, that means that the sugars and carbohydrates present in the food have been eaten by the good bacteria (often lactic acid bacteria).
What's the Difference Between Dill Pickles and Sour Pickles?The bacteria then convert that sugar into other substances, like acids, carbon dioxide, and alcohol. Those substances, in term, preserve the food (and add to its flavor). So when you eat, say, kimchi, you consume the flourishing colony of good bacteria that has preserved the cabbage for you. Circle of life.
Where They Overlap
You know how we just said that a pickle is just a food that’s been preserved with a brine? Well, many fermented foods start with exactly that: A brine. So they’re also pickles. Fermented pickles. Sauerkraut, for instance, is made by packing cabbage with salt and letting it ferment. Traditional dill pickles are made by fermenting cucumbers in salty water. Kimchi can be made with a bunch of delicious things, like cabbage, radish, garlic, anchovy and chile, but salt is the essential.
Why do traditional dill pickles and sauerkraut taste so tart if they’re not made with vinegar? One of the substances bacteria produce during fermentation is acid. That means that many fermented foods end up tasting very acidic.