Bam! Try bamboo pickles

Some people can't see the forest for the trees. But Carla Faw Squires, like her mother and grandmother, looks upon a bamboo grove and sees pickles.

"People think they look like calamari," Squires says. She will offer samples at PickleFest of the bamboo pickle recipe her grandmother developed after World War II. "If you like crunchy dill pickles, you'll like these."

Squires drives from Raleigh to her family's home place in Wilkes County to harvest bamboo each spring. The community gained the curious crop after a woman who served as a nurse during the building of the Panama Canal returned home with a few carefully wrapped plants. With a booming supply and a Victory Garden mindset, the women of Wilkes County were determined to use it to feed their families.

Squires' grandparents, who owned a small country store before her grandfather became chief of police, eventually moved to Lenoir but returned to North Wilkesboro in the 1970s. They planted their own bamboo grove, starting with just seven stalks. Pickling soon resumed, with young Carla at her grandmother's side.

"I was the only grandchild interested at the time," says Squires, who left a technology finance career in 2007 to start the Bamboo Ladies. Bamboo pickles first were processed in Asheville and then at The Cookery in Durham. She now produces about 500 jars annually at a processing center in Hillsborough. They can be found locally at NOFO @ the Pig and Southern Season.

Cooking Light magazine named her pickled bamboo among the winners of its 2010 Taste Test Awards: "Charming, odd, and delicious, they're a perfect gift for the adventurous foodie."

The product is entirely handmade, beginning with cutting and shucking young shoots and carefully slicing the bamboo to keep its concentric circles together. "It's more difficult that you might think," says Squires, noting that a mandoline or other rapid slicer pops the bamboo into unmanageable rings. "The whole process is hard work, but it's worth it to keep my family legacy intact."

This post first appeared in Indy Week. 

What's the big dill, Durham?

PickleFest
Saturday, July 25, noon–3 p.m.
The Rickhouse, 609 Foster St., Durham

Free admission, samples and music; food and drink for sale from vendors: Juju, The Parlour, Get'n Pickled, Farmer's Daughter, Mt. Olive, Kokyu, Dogfish Head Brewery and more

Ben Woodward remembers the childhood delight of Sour Patch Kids candies. As the sugar crystals melted and his tongue re-enacted the precise sweet-salty-sour-bitter chart that made little sense on the blackboard, he blinked briny tears of joy.

Today, the co-owner of Haw River Farmhouse Ales in Saxapahaw is finishing a brew for beer lovers who crave a similar pucker. His Pickled Pepper Sour Beer will be among the featured pours at Saturday's PickleFest in Durham.

"It's an acquired taste for some, but craft beer drinkers are more exploratory today than they were 10 years ago," Woodward says. "It's no different than offering someone a shrub. When they realize it's a vinegar soda, they think you're crazy."

Until they try it. In their tasting room, Woodward has observed a three-step reaction among those trying sour beers or shrubs, also called drinking vinegars. The first sip is shock and surprise; the second leads to curiosity and wonder. "By the third sip," he says, "they accept that it really is as delicious as they think it is."

Woodward explains that classic sour beer results from slow-acting bacteria luxuriating in the barrel as long as a year. His Pickled Pepper is a quicker hybrid called kettle souring. Wild yeast is added to the mixture to hasten fermentation of sugars, delivering a tangy brew in about three months.

"They're both delicious, but it's like refrigerator pickles versus fermented ones," he concedes. "It's not as complex, but not everyone likes those deep flavors."

If you're looking for a gateway beverage that's alcohol-free but refreshingly crisp, Woodward suggests his golden beet shrub made with white balsamic vinegar.

"We were going to do a traditional red beet and dark balsamic shrub, but when I saw those golden beets at the farmer's market I couldn't resist them," he says. "It will be flavored with black peppercorn and a couple of pickling spices."

While Haw River finishes its shrubs in casks and pours them from a tap, Woodward says many shrubs are easy to make at home. Books like Michael Dietsch's 2014 sensation, Shrubs: An Old-Fashioned Drink for Modern Times, offer basic instruction as well as tips on how to incorporate seasonal botanicals.

"You can make them at home in just a couple of days and finish them with a bit of soda water," Woodward says. "Unlike commercial sodas, you can make these as sweet or sour as you like, and with what whatever fruit or vegetable you like. Really, the possibilities are endless."

This post first appeared in Indy Week.