Tucson Revives a Dying Art

By COLlive reporter

When Zyayv Badalov bites into a pickle, he is often disappointed.

“At home is the best,” says the 74-year-old assembler of medical equipment that marinates various vegetables in his Tucson home.

Bringing a family tradition from the “old country” – Uzbekistan under the Soviet rule, Mr. Badalov and his wife pickle cabbage, carrots, roman tomatoes, eggplant and of course cucumbers.

The key, he says, is knowing when to marinate cold or under heat.

And while his three married children appreciate and cherish the method and outcome, Mr. Badalov found that his grandchildren did not share the interest in the art. “Young people say, why work hard if you can buy it in a store?”

That is why Badalov and his sons, Rafoel, Roma and Robert, were looking forward to bringing their children to the traveling Kosher Pickle Factory that came to Tucson for the first time on Sunday, October 21.

The nationally traveled instructor, Mendy Margolin who goes by the professional name of “Rabbi Pickle,” flew in from Brooklyn, NY, where pickles are the staple of any honorable deli sandwich.

Close to 120 people, from seniors to young children, showed up for the workshop organized by Chabad of Tucson, the largest Jewish outreach and education network in Southern Arizona. It was co-sponsored by AshTov LLC and was one of Margolin’s biggest crowds yet.

“We all see items like kosher pickles or kosher salt on the shelves of the supermarket. Today you will learn their origin and how they got their name,” Rabbi Yehuda Ceitlin of Chabad of Tucson told participants at the Jewish Community Center’s Sculpture Garden.

Margolin then presented a fascinating of the concept of Kosher dietary laws and how think kosher salt was needed to be used to salt slaughtered chicken and animals.

While the history of pickles stretches back 4000 years to residents of ancient Greece, Egypt and India, Margolin said the types of Mr. Badalov are a rarity today.

“Manhattan’s Lower East Side was once populated by countless pickle vendors, today they established an International Pickle Festival to keep the art alive,” he said.

Participants got to make their personalized jars including the “winning recipe” shared by Margolin and which included Kirby cucumbers that came directly from a Nogales farm and donated by the Paterson Pickle Factory.

“I will be walking all participants through the pickling process so everyone will get to take home their own personalized jar,” he said about the hour-long presentation attended to date by over 10,000 people.

“It was a fun and interactive learning experience that I was able to share with my husband who normally hates cooking and was excited about this,” says Donna Youdelman, a special-ed teacher.

Youdelman said she remembers her New York-born mother taking her to a New York deli to fetch a pickle from a barrel.

“When my mom would make pickles at home, I couln’t wait for them to be ready. And I must say, I can’t wait for the pickles I made to be ready,” she admitted.