Shared Flavors , Shared Memories
What a Hundred Cucumbers Taught Me
From carrying home 100 cucumbers with her mother in Korea to discovering Hungary’s sun-fermented pickles, this story traces how one tradition finds cousins across borders.
From carrying home 100 cucumbers with her mother in Korea to discovering Hungary’s sun-fermented pickles, this story traces how one tradition finds cousins across borders.
Every summer growing up, it was almost a ritual. My mother would make oiji (오이지), Korean fermented cucumbers. And it wasn’t just a few jars. We’re talking a full jeop (접), at least 100 cucumbers (오이 한 접). Depending on the size, that’s close to 10 kilograms.
As I got older, taller than my mom, stronger than her, I began helping carry those heavy bags home from the market. The first time I managed all 100 on my own, she beamed. She bragged about it to friends for weeks, amazed that I could carry what she once had to do alone. I think, for her, it was more than muscle. It was a quiet crossover: a sign that her daughter had grown, that care was being returned.
Every year, even now, my mom calls to tell me when she’s made a new batch of oiji. It’s her way of keeping me close.
When I moved to Hungary, I stumbled across something that stopped me in my tracks: kovászos uborka, sour summer pickles, left to ferment in the sun. I called her right away. I said:
“It’s like oiji!”
These were short, knobby cucumbers, nothing like Korea’s long, slender ones. But the taste, the texture, the feeling… they were cousins. She was delighted, amazed that on the other side of the world, people also fermented cucumbers. Not with boiling brine, but with bread and sunlight.
Her curiosity lit up.
“Oh really? That’s what they do with bread? How interesting!”
For her, it was another thread in the endless tapestry of how people everywhere find their own way to the same flavors. To Koreans, bread is dessert, not something you’d think to use for pickling. But it made sense. In kimchi-making, we use pul (풀), a porridge made from flour or starch, to feed the lactic acid bacteria. Different ingredients, same science.
Hungary
Korea
One uses time and warmth for juicy, tangy pickles; the other uses heat and salt for a firm, refreshing crunch. Different approaches, all aimed at keeping food fresh through the summer.
Now, my husband and I carry the tradition wherever we live. It began in Austin, continued in Hungary, and now, in the Netherlands.
Each summer, we ferment cucumbers, shaped by memory, local ingredients, and whatever we can find. Sometimes it’s long Korean cucumbers; other times, short Hungarian ones or softer varieties from Dutch markets. Here in The Hague, the diversity grows, thanks to immigrants from all over, and I’ve even discovered new pickling methods. Like brining in olive juice, a favorite I first tasted at Ali’s Incredible Sandwich.
The method changes too. I use boiled brine when I want crunch, sunlight fermentation when the Netherlands gives us more sunny days than rain. The results are never identical, but the goal is always the same: to keep a tradition alive, while letting it evolve.
Cucumbers don’t travel far, but recipes do.
Korea has oiji. Hungary, kovászos uborka. Ukraine, kvasheni ohirky (квашені огірки). And in the U.S., the dill pickle, a diner staple that became my comfort food when I first moved there.
Some credit Dutch farmers in early Brooklyn with popularizing vinegar-pickled cucumbers in barrels. The word pickle itself comes from the Dutch pekel (brine). Eastern European Jewish immigrants later added garlic, dill, and a sharper tang, creating the deli pickle we know today.
The sour crunch is now as American as a pastrami sandwich… or my guilty pleasure: fried pickles.
Origins aside, the story is the same. Recipes travel, adapt, and become tradition in new places. For immigrants, that’s more than food; it’s carrying a piece of home. In the end, it’s never just pickles. It’s the taste of where you’ve been, and where you belong.
