I don't know if you've known this, but East-European countries are in love with pickles. At least most of Romania is. We make pickles from everything, so if you ever plan to visit and you're a pickle amateur, you'll find a wide variety to taste.

I'll list some here:

• The Classics:
  Pickled cucumbers (in vinegar or brine)
  Pickled cabbage (in vinegar or brine)
  Pickled watermelons
  Pickled tomatoes
  Pickled sweet peppers

• Whatever we find in the garden (I'll enumerate them using commas to save space)
  Pickled carrots, pickled parsnip, pickled cauliflower, pickled red peppers, pickled beetroot (I may have forgotten a few)

• Fruits
  Pickled apples and pears, pickled grapes

We also produce large amounts of jam too, but bottom line is WE LOVE PICKLES.

So, when autumn calls with its bag full of goodies my mom (and a few million of other moms around here) prepares a lot of pickles to be consumed in winter. It's a common belief around here that pickles can cure a lot of stuff, especially stomach pains and hangovers. Most of the people go for a classic combo, a cucumbers+cabbage or watermelon or a mix from the Classic list above.

This is the farmer's market where I live, they sell everything you need to make pickles

We store them in jars that range from 400g to 5 kg (!) or in barrels. Usually, each apartment has a storage unit inside the block of flats. In most cases, most of that unit 50% occupied with pickles.

For example, my father ate a barrel of 150 l of pickled cabbage in one winter alone. He must like cabbage a lot. (!)
We eat almost everything with pickles, and also, as I told you before, it is a cure for hangovers (that I can't deny.) We drink the brine from cucumbers and cabbage pickles, and it helps you recover from a rough night of partying. This magic potion is traditionally called "Moare".

So what's the problem?

I don't know if you would have guessed, but the problem is that most of the people prepare too many pickles and they decay, so when autumn comes again, and it's time to make some more, they throw it down the toilet. At least some of my neighbors do. I call it Game of Thrones.

Immagine it's a lovely weekend morning, you've just had coffee by the kitchen's window, the sun is shining, you can feel the breeze through your hair. You need to go to the bathroom and become king for 20 minutes reading your favorite blog or, if you're old fashioned, a book or some cleaner's box.

So, as you're doing your favorite throne activity, somebody flushes around 2-3 stories above. All out of the sudden, you feel your nostrils burning, and this time is not you.

As your mind tries to understand what's happening, you choke on this stench that smells like it came from another dimension, although it's quite familiar. It has a paralyzing effect, and you can't run. It sucks and corrupts the air all around you; you try to hold your breath, and you can almost taste it. Soon, whatever's left of your conscience realizes that it was a charge of last winter's pickled cabbage and begs for it to end. And it goes on for at least three more minutes. It was just the first kind of pickles, so there are a rough 45 seconds break to wrap it up and get the hell out of there. As you try to regain consciousness, your legs become like jelly and the door feels so far away..

I think Tyrion could have gotten away with it if he would just have thrown a decayed pickled cabbage near Tywin.

Here's to the neighbor that taught me that what doesn't kill you makes you want to die. 🍻

(BONUS image from that time when we ran out of pickles in college.)

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