Sometimes I say to BrilliantEditor: "What should I write about tonight?"
Tonight he sleepily said, "Um, pickles."
Pickles are pickled cucumbers. But other things can be pickled. I've had pickled watermelon rind. It's not bad. There are pickled pig's feet, pickled eggs, ickle me pickle me tickle me, too, pickled cabbage (sauerkraut and kim chee and probably lots of other things), cole slaw can be pickled, escabeche is pickled carrots and garlic and things, pickled peppers. Peter Piper picked a peck of those babies. But when a person says, "Pickle", this person thinks of cucumbers.
The same idea applies to relish. Certainly I can relish the idea of something, but when it comes to condiments I always think of pickle relish. And so cucumbers. But relish can be lots of things. Salsa is kind of a relish. In fact, I think some places I've ordered food with a mango something or other topping. It has been called a chutney, a relish, and a salsa.
Relish: That which is used to impart a flavor; specifically,
something taken with food to render it more palatable or
to stimulate the appetite; a condiment.
[1913 Webster]
chutney: A warm or spicy condiment or pickle made in India,
compounded of various vegetable substances, such as
chopped fruits or green tomatoes, etc., often cooked with
sweets and acids such as sugar and vinegar, with ginger
and spices. Syn: Indian relish.
[1913 Webster]
Salsa::salsa
n : spicy sauce of tomatoes and onions and chili peppers to
accompany Mexican foods [WordNet (r) 2.0]
-or-
Etymology: Spanish, literally, sauce, from Latin, feminine of
salsus salted -- more at SAUCE 1 : a spicy sauce of tomatoes,
onions, and hot peppers [webster.com]
Apparently the webster.com people haven't gotten the news that salsa can be made out of all kinds of things. Or maybe I haven't gotten the memo that salsa is actually only made of tomato, onions, and peppers.
But back to relish. I like sweet pickle relish on my hot dogs. But you can buy dill pickle relish if you want. It's nice to have if you eat a lot of hamburgers and like pickles on them but hate fishing out the little chips of pickle. But dill pickle relish isn't very good on hot dogs.
Right now we have some Mount Olive pickles in the fridge. They're from North Carolina. The town's called Mount Olive. I knew a girl who grew up there. She says that the whole town smells like pickles some days. I can't imagine that to be a pleasant thing.
I also knew someone who came from the mushroom capital of the world. Kennet Square, I do believe it is. Mushrooms like moist organic matter. They like humus and peat moss and compost. They also like manure. Can you guess what Kennet Square smelled like sometimes?
I grew up in Corning. The Crystal City. Crystal doesn't smell. Is it sad that I don't have a town smell? No, not so much.
If I did have a city smell, though, you can bet that it would be different from those of Kennet Square and Mount Olive.
Posted by dotty at May 1, 2005 09:56 PM