Pickled fruit

Pickled fruit is simply fruit that has been preserved through pickling—a method that uses either anaerobic fermentation in a salt brine or soaking in vinegar. A wide variety of fruits are pickled, including peaches, apples, crabapples, pears, plums, grapes, currants, tomatoes, and olives. Vinegar itself can also be made from fruit, like apple cider vinegar. For thousands of years across many regions, pickling was the main way to preserve fruits and other foods.

Evidence shows that ancient cultures in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and China all pickled different foods to keep them from spoiling. In the Americas, the Maya used tobacco to preserve food, specifically for pickling peppers. In ancient times, people used naturally occurring salt and water to create brine, which they employed to pickle foods that are not edible raw, such as olives and some grains. Pickled peaches are often made from medium-sized, non-melting clingstone peaches with small seeds.

Peaches

Before about 1960 in the United States, some were prepared from small, unripe freestone peaches. Flavor can be added with sweet spices like cinnamon, cloves, and allspice, or with savory pickling spices such as peppercorns and coriander. These pickled peaches are used alongside meats, in salads, and for other purposes. Pickled pears are sometimes called spiced pears when made with sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice.

Grapes

They are often prepared from underripe pears and can accompany dishes like roasts and salads. To pickle grapes, white wine vinegar, water, kosher salt, sugar, garlic cloves, rosemary, and dried chili flakes are used. The garlic, chili flakes, and other spices give the grapes an unconventional flavor. Cantaloupe, a summer fruit, can be pickled and refrigerated so it can be eaten year-round.

By country

It is pickled using champagne vinegar, hot water, granulated sugar, ice, mustard seed, celery seed, Aleppo pepper, and cinnamon stick. In Malaysia, unripe fruits like belimbing, kedondong, chermai, lime, pineapple, papaya, mango, and nutmeg are pickled. In Mexico, two terms describe pickling: "escabechar" or "encurtir" is used when food is pickled in vinegar, while "escabeche" or "salmuera" refers to pickling where salt is the main agent. The word "vinegar" comes from French, vin aigre, meaning "sour wine,"