Sasha Shor grew up surrounded by pickles — bright, briny, and ever-present at meals in her Jewish-Russian household. There were tart kirby cucumbers and juicy little tomatoes, which Sasha and her mother Marina shared with us in the Grandmas Tent at our 2,000 person picnic The Great Nosh. There was also vibrant magenta cabbage with beets, sweet-and-sour pickled watermelon and mushrooms — nearly every vegetable found their way into jars, preserved in saltwater with herbs and spices.
Sasha explains: “They were so common that we never even thought twice about them always being in the fridge in big jars or piled onto huge platters on the table next to all the salads and hot dishes — and, of course, as the most classic chaser for an icy shot of vodka.” When her family immigrated to the United States and landed in Nashville, Tennessee, they were surprised to find only vinegar-based pickles lining the grocery store shelves — too sharp, too sweet, and never quite right. So they returned to their roots and made their own.
Pickling was a way of life in Eastern Europe, Sasha adds, with entire cold cellars beneath apartment buildings dedicated to barrels of fermented vegetables. In Nashville, that legacy continued: Sasha’s grandfather grew cucumbers, dill, and tomatoes in his backyard garden and even collected small, sour crabapples from the trees for pickling — a practice they affectionately called “soaking.”
Sasha continues the tradition in New York in her Union Square kitchen, using produce from the Union Square Greenmarket. For her, it’s about more than taste — it’s about memory and identity. Each jar is a link to her heritage, her family, and the generations who pickled before her.
Read more about Sasha’s family in The Russian Picnic Tradition a Family Smuggled Out of the USSR and in our cookbook "The Jewish Holiday Table: A World of Recipes, Traditions & Stories to Celebrate All Year Long,” Plus, check out more recipes from The Great Nosh’s Grandmas Tent.
