Published: 10 December 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
‘PICKLE DAYS’ MAY BE the latest trend in the cool inner-city suburbs but fermenting is a tradition in many cultures, and for Jewish people, it’s food that evokes memories of what their grandmothers used to make.
Earlier this year the Jewish urban community farm Adamama, at the White City tennis courts in Sydney’s Paddington, introduced pickle courses. The participants have been excited not just about their new set of skills but by the sense of community that has enveloped them.
The dynamics of the group – comprising people from their 20s to 60s – have been one of the most interesting factors, says farm manager Mitch Burnie, who set up Adamama with the support of Shalom cultural and educational centre.
“That was important to me; I didn’t want one particular age range [This range] creates more interest in the conversations that we can have, and people bring different skills and life wisdom.”
One of the group’s members, lawyer Rachel Bickovsky, had worked on a kibbutz in the 1970s and has been a keen gardener her whole life. However, her current home has a "minuscule" garden.
This project was a perfect fit - I like doing things in groups, gardening, and with a sense of Jewish community.
"I haven't done too much else in the Jewish community, as I haven't felt there was something right for me, but this pickle project was a perfect fit - I like doing things in groups, gardening, and with a sense of Jewish community,” Bickovsky explains.
“We're all working towards a common cause. I'm the oldest in the group, but there's such a good mix of people. I'm old but I'm fit."
Sami Hurwitz, 25, adds: "Before joining the pickle project I was the kind of person who kills every plant I touch,” admits one of the youngest members of the group. "The group was really fine, really diverse, and there were a lot of people I'd never met or heard about before, which is really refreshing in the Jewish community. It's been nice to meet people from different parts of Sydney.
"A lot of my [working] week is spent sitting in front of a computer, so it's been quite nice to have something where you step aside from the digital sphere and get your hands dirty and be surrounded with people. It's like learning a survival skill but it's also been a lot of fun."
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The group was given guidance through the whole process from start to finish – how to prepare the soil, sow seeds, harvest then pickle.
“It was very weird at the start,” noted another participant, journalist Elias Visontay, 25. “We’d be wheelbarrowing loads of compost, going up to the corner with these tennis players playing on grass tennis courts – an all-white professional affair – and we’d be catching tennis balls as we were putting the seeds into the ground, so it really felt like a community space.”
The project also engaged with other Jewish grassroots food groups. The cucumbers were bottled in the kosher facilities of Our Big Kitchen (OBK) in the Yeshivah precinct in Bondi Junction. In addition, Visontay reports that one step of this pickling journey “included playing the shofar during Rosh Hashanah to our freshly planted seedlings”.
The group journey began in July when Burnie issued a call-out for interested people – and received over 40 responses for the 15 places available. Since the first meeting in August, the group has met around 12 times, including Zoom calls. “Which is a lot!” Burnie observes. “It’s an immersive experience; they wouldn’t have met up [otherwise]. They all turn up on a Sunday morning when it’s raining because they know they’ve got to do it and they want to do it.”
“It was very weird at the start. We’d be wheelbarrowing loads of compost, going up to the corner with these tennis players playing on grass tennis courts.
In addition, the vagaries of nature meant that agriculture on this – as on any – scale, can be unpredictable. “I kept on saying to the group, ‘we’ll get 1000 cucumbers – but one big storm and our plan goes kaput!’,” Burnie warned. Fortunately, nature was mostly on side.
Taste experimenting and deciding between different brines was also part of the process: “We had a pickling day with just the cohort and showed them how to make the brines,” Burnie explains. “They took them home, tried them, then voted to have two products – one vinegar and one salt brine.”
“I've always liked pickles but never thought about the kind of brine they sit in. Now I realise I'm a die-hard salt brine, traditional shtetl-style kind of girl,” Hurwitz chuckles.
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The group also had to grapple with marketing and logistics challenges. “We thought ‘Alma Street Pickles’ would be an approachable name to sell under, as it links back to where the pickles are grown, as White City is located on Alma St,” explains Visontay.
In total, the program taught them how to start a small business – though in this case, any funds raised in selling the pickles are put back into the organisation, which is a collective.
At the end of November, there was a pre-sale of the jars: “In 12 hours we sold out our 100 jars through word of mouth and social media,” Burnie reports. In addition, 35 more jars have been sold and a total of over 1100 cucumbers were harvested during the course.
Two farm stall days are being held soon – general open days so buyers can also attend the farm to pick up their jars of pickles: this Sunday, on December 13, which is also Adamama’s first anniversary celebration, and on December 20.
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It’s planned to run pickling courses every season, though specific vegetables haven’t yet been finalised. During autumn, Burnie says it’s likely to be cabbage and sauerkraut, while in summer it could be beans, turnips or radishes. “I’ll probably do a call-out in January and start February/March then we’ll start again in May.”
He says one of the most attractive aspects is being outdoors, another useful safety factor in, hopefully, post-Covid times. “We spend so much time indoors, and I like being able to connect food, culture, history, and tradition in this space, as well as helping people upskill.”
The ultimate aim, he says, is to “preserve tradition and living culture – in the brine as well as within the community!”
Alma Street Pickles will be officially launched at Adamama's first birthday party on Sunday December 13. Single pickles will also be sold, along with pickle brine shots to drink. The stalls open at 3pm, the party is from 4pm-6pm.
To attend on December 13 or 20, please register as part of Covid regulation
READ MORE
A roots experience: Australia’s first urban Jewish farm (The Jewish Independent)
Photo: Chana Markovits harvesting cucumbers
