I’m graduating from college soon, something that has never happened to me and which I have very little advice for. I just have one weird observation. When my mother asked me what I would really miss about my college experience, apart from all of the people, the only thing I could think of was being within walking distance of a Chicago dog.
I was mostly pescatarian before college, because my mother is one, so I had never really had a hot dog before living on my own. To be honest, they seemed wildly unappealing, usually soggy, and surprisingly badly designed. But one thing I am always down for is a good pickled vegetable.
People call the Chicago dog the hot dog that’s been “dragged through the garden.” Apart from the usual hot dog accoutrement, it has an entire tomato slice, onions and a slab of pickle the size of a literal sausage. I am from Southern California, capital of healthy eating. From my perspective, this is still basically a salad.
I grew up eating a lot of fermented vegetables, as well as produce that was meant to last a very long time — kimchi and dried sweet potato are two of my favorite foods ever, and both are very resilient creations; designed to outlast almost anything else, and to survive long journeys in suitcases. Both pack a lot of flavor into a somewhat unassuming package.
What I’m saying is, the pickle spear in a Chicago dog was how I knew I was home. It was my throughline. It made me realize how much I actually value pickles and fermented things, and how nearly ubiquitous the idea has been throughout histories and cultures.
Pickles, at least to me, are quite a hopeful object. They’re very resilient, given that they’ve usually been through a lot, including but not limited to being brined, jarred, drowned and buried. And yet, through all this, they endure. More than that, they bring joy.
Even the act of making a pickle represents a grim sort of hope. A pickle is meant to last as long as possible. And so, my logic goes, should you. A pickled thing is more than a food item; it is a promise that you or someone you love is going to make it long enough in this world to get to eat it. A pickle compels.
Pickling something means that you are preserving something for the future; and by pickling, you create the idea of that future, and a version of you who might eat that thing. It’s a debt to yourself. If I make this, I have to make sure there’s a world where I get to eat it.
The world, especially now, tends to paralyze me. I’m at a crossroads in my life, and it feels like this country is at a crossroads as well. The magnitude of the threats to my existence and the existence of my loved ones has overwhelmed me in the past few months. Often problems feel utterly insurmountable, and despair looms.
So whenever I get nervous I just focus on myself and the next ten seconds, because that’s really all I have. And if the best thing I can think to do with the next ten seconds is to make something for a future version of myself, and then to work, however slowly, towards ensuring that a future world exists, then that’s what I’ll do.
A pickle, or kimchi, or sauerkraut or a dried sweet potato, extends that reasoning into the far future, and reaches an innumerable amount of people. Making food that lasts, that is preserved, and that is meant for the people you love, wills that future into being. Pickles preserve care, and allow it to be bottled and sent.
You might expect a pickled thing to be small and shriveled. And for the most part, they are. But the surprising thing about a pickle is that it loses none of its flavor to the passing of time. In fact, it adds to itself from its environment, taking on the flavor of brine and herbs and spices as it ages.
Why can’t I apply that logic to myself? Why not let myself age into a brighter, more interesting version of myself, as harrowing as that might be? And why not let that future unfold with the same grim hope that pickles represent?
Biting into a good pickle tastes like you’ve bottled energy itself. There’s no other word I have for that other than magic.
If you have a pressing problem you need advice on, or a response to this, email [email protected] with “Best Guess” in the subject line.
Mika Ellison is a Medill senior. She can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.
