Vegetarian pickled cucumber soup with pearl barley

Pickled cucumber soup is one of the most famous soups in Eastern Europe. Pickling is one of the oldest methods of food preservation as it was the only way to preserve various food for future consumption before the refrigeration. Pickling process generally is traced back to India as it is believed to have originated about 4-5k years ago. Food production were increased in the summer because of hot weather and lack of water. There was a need to preserve excess food produced in winters and the process of picking was invented to solve this problem. Asian style pickles were made using salt, oil and dry chili powder mixed with condiments. However, nowadays there is a lot of different ways to pickle fruit,veggies or even meat. Mostly it depends on the region. Let's take a look at most popular pickles around the World.

Pickles in India:
Traditionally they use unripe fruits such as mangoes, tamarinds, lemons and Indian goosberry. Also, various vegetables are used such as bitter gourd, gherkin, ginger, garlic, carrot, onion, cauliflower, citron and jackfuit are also pickled. Sometimes they mix of two or more vegetables or unripe fruits to pickle, yet in many cases only one fruit or vegetable is used for pickling. Also, in India it is popular to make non-vegetarian pickles from chicken, fish, mutton and prawns.

Pickles in Korea:
Kimchi (famous traditional side dish of salted and fermented vegetables) is the most common product to pickle in Korea which is made with fermented spicy cabbage, also includes various vegetables such as soybeans, oysters, fish and other ingredients. Origins of Korean pickling belongs to China, yet the main difference is that Korean pickling has it own variations in accordance to the local flavor and available ingredients.

Pickles in China:
Pickles in China are very popular and the process of pickling has been there for thousands of years. Main vegetables for pickles are lettuce, bitter melon, cucumber, carrot, cabbage and shallot. They mix vegetables with salt and sugar and place them to vinegar. They also stores eggs by applying salt, hay, earth and other ingredients and seal to mature for about 1 month. In some pickling processes instead of vinegar, soy sauce is included for fermentation and in other varieties seasoning such as garlic, ginger, chili or peppercorns are used to create hot and characteristic flavor.

Pickles in Japan:
In Japan pickles mainly includes carrot, ginger, gingko nut, radish, eggplant, plum, soybean paste and green apricot along with parboiled vegetables.

Fresh pickles:
Yes, also this type of pickles exist. Other name is instant pickles, also known as chutneys. They are prepared to last only for couple of days, There is a lot of different choices to prepare instant pickles. For preparation many vegetables, herbs and seasoning are used. They are very similar to sauces and ketchup.