The Expat's Guide to Pickles

To me, a good sandwich isn't really complete without a couple hearty dills on the side, even if it's made with the typically smaller sized sliced bread that only seems to be available in Latin America. But far outweighing the lack of large sandwiches are the horrible imposters posing as pickles in Colombian supermarkets.


"Pepinillos en vinagre," or pickles in vinegar are just that, except without a hint of dill or spice or sweetness; the mere fact that they are passing these things off as pickles seems a great deception. If you go to a supermarket in the US, you can find a variety of differently styled and flavored pickles: dills and sweets,  bread and butter, spears, kosher dills and my favorite garlic: aka "Bubbies" brand.

So, looked up a few recipes online and decided to make them myself. Much like pickles in Colombia, mason jars are nowhere to be found, so after a month long quest that ended with me searching down back alley recycle spots in the Centro, I came up with several gallon jars. Making pickles is kind of like making beer in that you need to sterilize everything so nothing goes wrong during the fermentation process. This meant finding an 6 gallon stew pot to boil the gallon jars and lids in. My biggest problem was finding picking cucumbers, which didn't seem to exist until I found some at the last minute (and have yet to see them again). I used smaller regular cucumbers, which didn't really hold up at all for either of my recipes, which sucks because I was really looking forward to some Bubbies-type garlic dills.


I sliced a few of the non-pickling cucumbers up into smaller containers, which seemed to hold up better than the wholes, which just turned to mush. However, the gallon jars with the pickling cucumbers was a resounding success! The pickles turned out a little sweeter and saltier than I like them, but still, many times better than any sorry excuse passing for a pickle in an EXITO (Colombian Supermarket). So if you are living abroad and are having the same problem, check out this recipe (except use maybe half of the salt) and sandwich time won't be such a sad and nostalgic experience.

Florida by way of Havana and Estelí

I came to Estelí with two objectives: to see a cigar factory and to score a box of the favorite torpedo cigars I had discovered the last time I was in Nica. I was surprised arriving in Estelí to see so many tourists walking about. It wasn't a touristy place with much touristy infrastructure or things to do. There was a cigar factory tour offered at our hostel but we were more interested in the free tour we saw listed on WikiTravel.

We showed up at the factory, which was an unmarked building on the edge of town. The attendant seemed surprised to see us and when I asked about the tour, she fetched a sharply dressed manager. When he found we spoke Spanish, he lit up and led us around a few rooms, showing us the various stages of cigar making. To conclude he took us to the drying room and handed us two of the freshest cigars I've ever smelled ("they are almost done!"). When I inquired about buying a particular box of cigars he called up an associate ("He's Cuban, he knows everyone!") who arrived with a cigar in hand. Although it was 2pm, 95 degrees and humid as hell, we lit up our own cigars and got down to business with Arturo. But as it is in Latin America, we got the pleasure of getting to know our present company first.

Arturo had stayed in Cuba after the Revolution of '59 but soon found that his business of exporting cigars was obsolete after the Communist Party took control of the tobacco industry. He moved to Estelí with many other Cuban tobacco workers because the soil and climate was similar to back home. Ironically, it was twenty years later that the Sandinista Communists took over much of the tobacco production in Estelí, once again, putting Arturo out of a job. He moved to Florida where he had some family and had only recently returned to Estelí because "the medical care here is so much better, and free!" He captivated us with the specifics of his Cuban escape ("we just all got on a boat any way we could, swimming, whatever!") and subsequent adventures, but when he got into talking about his ex-wives, I took the opportunity to get back to business. 

When I asked him about getting a box of the J.L Salazar Reserva Torpedo, he gave me the same response every Nicaraguan had given me before: "You don't want a box of Padron's?" He made a couple calls while we finished our stogies. "Good to go." Hit lit a brand new cigar ("I smoke three maybe, four a day") and took us down some backstreets until we reached a communal housing area for cigar factory workers. We met our man, who didn't bargain much but still gave me a good deal on a box of my favorite cigars. $60 for a box of 25 cigars is an ok deal in Nicaragua but it's a steal when you factor in getting to spend an afternoon with a guy like Arturo.