Ogorki Kiszone

Ogorki kiszone are cucumbers fermented, not pickled in vinegar - packed into barrels or jars with salt water, dill flower heads, garlic, horseradish leaf and sometimes oak or cherry leaf, and left to sour by lactic fermentation over days or weeks. The distinction from ogorki konserwowe, the vinegar kind, matters here and Poles will make it. Young ones after a few days are still crisp and mildly sour, called malosolne; left longer they go soft and strongly sour and are used in soup - zupa ogorkowa - and in tartare and salads. Markets sell them by weight from open barrels, and the brine is sold too and drunk, both as a folk remedy for a hangover and, more recently, marketed to athletes for the electrolytes. Cucumber fermenting is a household autumn activity across the country and the recipes are argued over like everything else.

What you actually see

• Fermented, not vinegared - salt brine and lactic fermentation, no acid added.
• Barrels on market stalls - sold loose by weight, with the brine.
• Two stages - crisp and mild after days, soft and sour after weeks.
• The brine drunk - as a hangover remedy and now as a sports drink.

When to go

All year; the new batch from July to September. An hour.

Honest expectations

Supermarket jars are often vinegar-pickled despite the label wording - barrel stalls are the reliable source. They are salty. The brine is an acquired taste, whatever it is claimed to cure.

Nearby

Any Polish market; Hala Mirowska in Warsaw and Stary Kleparz in Krakow have barrel stalls.