Food technology

An English reader meets pökeln and hears ‘pickle’, and the ear is right about the family: both go back to a Low German and Dutch word for brine. The meanings, however, have parted. Pökeln is always salt, usually with curing salt, and always meat or fish: gepökelter Schinken is cured ham, and curing is often the first step before räuchern. Vinegar plays no part in it. The jar of gherkins that English calls pickled is sauer eingelegt in German, a matter of acid rather than salt. The rest of the list follows a product through the plant: the processes that make it keep, from ultrahocherhitzen to die Gefriertrocknung, what goes into the recipe and the pack, what happens to it on the shelf, and the paperwork of die Eigenkontrolle, down to die Rückstellprobe kept from every batch.