800 Bancroft Way — Suite 105 — Berkeley, Ca 94710

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The Cultured Pickle Shop

Within the American food lexicon, the pickle suffers from rigid and compartmentalized thinking. To many, the pickle is a sour cucumber, period. However, on any given day, one can visit the tasting area of The Cultured Pickle Shop and sample ten varieties of sauerkraut, four varieties of Kim Chee, fourteen different types of seasonal specialty pickles, eight different flavors of Kombucha tea, two pickles made with sake lees, two types of rice bran pickles, and—of courseױthe ubiquitous Classic Dill. In the spirit of enlarging the collective culinary mind, Cultured challenges the narrow confines of America's pickle prejudices. Global pickling traditions of the past interact dynamically with the Northern California foodshed in our Berkeley shop.

Our business began in a sleeping bag incubator on the side of a mountain in Northern Mendocino County. The Cultured Pickle Shop is now an entrepreneurial wonderland of bubbling stainless steel tanks producing thousands of pounds of locally grown organic soured vegetables each week. Along the way, we have seen a tiny in–law apartment with bullet–hole–ridden refrigerators used as incubators. We have seen all usable floor space in our apartment lined with pallets of ceramic crocks. We have carried our children on our backs through hourly rentals at community kitchens to qualify for required permits. That journey—of so many early mornings and late nights, of tonnage of vegetables thrown away, of intimidating amounts of debt incurred—has provided us with much insight into this vast world of vegetable alchemy.

While the recipes we employ at our Pickle Shop hold true to time–honored processes from around the world, our feet remained firmly planted in Northern California agriculture.

Globalized knowledge with a locavore mission.

For example, a Nuka Pot is a traditional style of fermenting vegetables in rice bran dating back to rural Zen Buddhist monasteries in 16th century Japan. But when a person steps beyond the typical daikon radish and buries Central Valley March asparagus in this mash, then a unique intersection of cultures, centuries, and locations transpires. Then you are in The Cultured Pickle Shop in Berkeley, California.