Blueberry Fool. Thom Rock

in the hippocampus or amygdala, the parts of the brain that maintain emotions and long-term memory. Whereas all of our other senses travel through different regions of the brain, taste and smell shoot directly to memory.

      We persisted. Taste, memory, and emotion seemed to combine with increasing intensity at every bite. Dinner conversations became sassy as each meal was accompanied by a potentially Proustian pickle. We evaluated the nuance and complexity of each new batch as if it were a fine wine. “Initially quite sour, this pickle opens slowly to reveal salty, earthy undertones,” one of us might sputter. Or, “A bit plump, but seductive, with a long, steely finish. Impressive nose, peppery, it promises to taste even better in three months.” For as long as the garden kept pumping out cucumbers (a brief but precious few weeks here in New England), we became students of the briny, the bitter, and all things biting. We spent hours discerning taut from crisp, and crisp from crunchy, or debating the subtle differences between tart and tangy.

      Sour, it turns out, has a split personality. There’s the good sour, the one that adds perk and pizzazz to our otherwise bland diet. And then there is sour’s evil twin, the one that spoils our food. We refer to bad feelings as sour grapes, and yet we intentionally make other fruits and veggies sour. In fact, we deliberately make any number of foods sour, pickling pig’s feet, flower buds, or hard-boiled eggs. Not even the little herring can escape our passion for pucker. Sour milk in the carton is something you don’t want to pour into your morning coffee or tea, but how sad the baked potato would become without its luscious slather of sour cream. And home bakers have long practiced the art of clabbering, or souring the milk in a recipe on purpose, to produce a tart flavor and ensure a tender crumb. Whenever she made doughnuts, Gram always soured the milk. Coincidentally, Cioci performed a similar bit of alchemy when she whisked cream into her vinegary beet soup, creating a shockingly pink and velvety borscht. Sour, when we’re on its good side, can perform miracles. The pickle, for example: cucumber, plus vinegar, plus salt and spice, somehow adds up to more than the sum of its parts.