By Ines Keane
Picture forty people lying face down on a frame thirty metres wide, pulled slowly across a field by a tractor. That is how the Spreewald harvests many of its cucumbers, according to the region’s own association. The pickers are not tired. They are working.
What the name covers
Spreewälder Gurken is a protected geographical indication, or PGI, in the European Union. The Spreewaldverein, the regional association, says it applied for protection in 1996 as sponsor of a protection association, and that the European Commission confirmed it in 1999. The product register Qualigeo gives the registration date as 18 March 1999, and Wikipedia says March 1999. These agree.
What the protection does, the association says, is stop canning companies outside the Spreewald from marketing their product as Spreewälder Gurken. The association also says a protected product must have peculiarities, in production or taste, that no other region shares. Qualigeo names the Spreewaldverein as the reference body and an inspection body called MELF Brandenburg. None of the pages we read lists the ingredients or the exact rules in the specification, so we say nothing about them. Our reading: the name tells you where the cucumbers were grown and processed. It does not, on what we found, tell you how sour or how spicy a jar will be.
The place
The Spreewald lies in the south of Brandenburg. Qualigeo says most of its cucumber fields have been protected since 1990 as the Spreewald Biosphere Reserve, and Wikipedia says the largest part of the region has been protected that way since 1990. The association credits the local microclimate. It also credits Dutch clothiers who settled in the region at the end of the sixteenth century, changed trade and specialised in gherkin growing. That is the association’s account, and we have not seen a second source for it.
An old trade, in the books
Wikipedia says that in the 1870s Theodor Fontane found the cucumber at the top of the Spreewald’s farm products. His 1882 book on the March of Brandenburg, it says, records that a single merchant sold 800 Schock a week, which it converts to 48,000. We cannot check the book, and report the page.
Both Wikipedia and Qualigeo add a later chapter. The gherkin was popular in East Germany, and after reunification in 1990 it was one of the few products from the east still on sale without a break. Wikipedia also says the jars appear in the 2003 film Good Bye Lenin!
The growing year
The association’s account follows the 2018 season. Seedlings go in around mid-April, and late spring frosts can kill them, so they are sometimes replanted. Harvest begins in mid-June, with July and August the main months. It can start about nine weeks after sowing or planting, but the farmer decides only after field inspections, in coordination with the pickling and canning firms.
Qualigeo gives a different shape. It says open-air sowing runs from April to June, greenhouse sowing takes place in December in heated conditions, and harvesting begins about three months after sowing, while the fruit is still unripe and bright green. Nine weeks and three months are not the same. They may describe different crops or conditions, or just different rules of thumb, and the pages do not say.
The frame
The association’s description of the harvest is the most vivid in the sources. Plants are picked every two to three days from “cucumber planes” pulled by tractor, with the harvesters lying on them. Each plane is about 30 metres wide, holds about 40 pickers and covers 80 to 200 metres an hour. About 60 to 70 planes work each season.
The main crop is pickling cucumbers, sorted in the 6/9 size, which the association explains as 6 to 9 cm long. A second crop, peeled cucumbers, is picked at about 30 cm when the skin turns yellowish-white. Qualigeo gives a single range for the protected product, 4 to 12 cm, with firm, crunchy flesh and a slightly sour flavour. The 6 to 9 cm sorting falls inside that range, so the two do not conflict.
The association’s figures for the 2018 harvest are around 26,000 tonnes of pickling cucumbers on about 370 hectares and 2,700 tonnes of peeled cucumbers on about 80 hectares.
In the jar
Wikipedia says fermentation once took several weeks in large barrels. It lists basil, lemon balm, grape leaves, cherry leaves and walnut leaves among flavourings, and says the full composition is a closely kept secret among about twenty picklers. The association links the taste to fresh herbs, dill, onions and spicy infusions. Wikipedia names three kinds: mustard gherkins, dill pickles and salted cucumbers. Qualigeo says they are sold with pepper, spices, garlic or mustard. We left out Wikipedia’s account of modern processing, because we could not match it to a second source.
Dates in order
- Late sixteenth century: Dutch clothiers settle and turn to gherkins, according to the Spreewaldverein.
- 1870s and 1882: Fontane and the 800 Schock, according to Wikipedia.
- 1990: reunification, and the biosphere reserve, according to Qualigeo and Wikipedia.
- 1996: application for protection, according to the Spreewaldverein.
- March 1999: registration, according to Qualigeo and Wikipedia.
What kind of sources these are
The Spreewaldverein is the body that applied for the protection, so its page is a producer-side account, taken from a 2019 interview about the 2018 harvest. Qualigeo is a product register for protected names. Wikipedia is open to anyone to edit.
Questions a buyer would ask
Can a jar from another region say Spreewälder Gurken? According to the Spreewaldverein, canning companies outside the Spreewald may not market under that name. Does the name give a recipe? Not in anything we found.
What we left out
We left out the legal case about amendments to the specification, because the pages we read did not mention it, and the soil-working and watering details from Qualigeo. We left out jar sizes and all prices.
Quick answers
Where do Spreewald gherkins come from? According to the Qualigeo register, the Spreewald region in the south of Brandenburg, Germany.
What does PGI mean on Spreewald gherkins? The Spreewaldverein says it stops canning companies outside the Spreewald from marketing their product as Spreewälder Gurken. Qualigeo records the name as registered on 18 March 1999.
How are Spreewald cucumbers harvested? The Spreewaldverein says pickers lie on tractor-drawn “cucumber planes”, about 30 metres wide, and pick every two to three days.
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