My family's vegetable crock, used for both pickling and storing vegetables.

There was a time when pickled vegetables, which represent a deep sense of rural nostalgia, became a feared ingredient of unknown origin. As the aroma of pickles from the old crocks of my childhood lingered in my nose and mouth, I set out, in order to hold on to those childhood memories, to take my first steps into a life of food processing.

I remember that when I was little, in the bitterly cold winters, farming families would dry all kinds of pickled vegetables in front of their doors. There were many kinds of pickles; they were not fancy in appearance yet had their own distinctive flavors, such as preserved radish (cai po), dried cauliflower, and fu cai, each with a different taste. These delicacies, sun-dried and pickled, were not made for sale but simply to use and preserve the vegetables that were abundant in winter. The starting point was cherishing one's blessings. At that time farming families ate only vegetables in season, and when vegetables were scarce in summer, these processed products were the best dish of all.

But at some point, preserved products such as cai po, which represent the taste of home, turned into feared ingredients of unknown origin. In today's technologically advanced society, all kinds of fresh vegetables can be grown in summer through greenhouses and hydroponics, so modern people, out of health considerations, can of course choose to eat more fresh vegetables. But that is not the main reason these preserved products are now feared by everyone. The main reason is that in this era when everything is expected to be quick and instant, we ourselves no longer know what chemical ingredients we have eaten.

Preserved products by definition are processed with salt, so they often give people a very salty impression, but in fact products such as dried vegetable use very little salt, and cai po and fu cai can both be desalted according to one's own preference (Note 1). Yet modern people, demanding crispness and convenience of use, naturally developed products that are not dried very thoroughly, so that they keep their crispness without being too salty and can still be stored, or even products with sweeteners and the like added to adjust the taste. On this premise, preservatives seem to be a win-win choice, and over time it seems no one is willing to dry them the traditional way anymore.

Must we see, every year before the holidays, which processed products have again exceeded the additive limits? It seems everyone has forgotten that these products can be preserved with nothing but salt and sunshine.