"Pickling" vs. Fermenting

[childrenspeaceguild]

I recently watched a video of an old Korean woman making Kimchi and she left it to ferment for less than 30 min. This struck me as odd, but then I was given a copy of Easy Japanese Pickling as a gift. It has some great recipes and information, however nothing is left to ferment longer than a few hours. In fact a lot of the instructions call for just a few minutes. Now I know that these are not technically (or traditionally) pickles, but what I wonder is: Has anyone experimented with these modern methods yet left the vegetables in for a longer time period?

[johnlvs2run]

What happened after the 30 minutes?

[Lycoperdon]

The Japanese translate sunomono to be pickle. However su = vinegar nomono=thing. So the actual translation is "things in vinegar". The common usage of pickle is something that is preserved in acid. Not just placed in an acid. So I would say that Japanese sunomono are not really pickles.

[Tim Hall]

Lycoperdon, this is a really insightful post. Thanks for posting. I was wondering if the "ferments" in question were really more "macerations," which seems to be the case.