PICKLED OKRA is my favorite Pickle of all - more than Dill or Butter Pickles, my Midwest Favs...it's the OKRA...no other Vegetable like it...when we lived in St. Charles, Illinois, we were the only kids who even knew what Okra was...in the whole Fox River Valley....

OKRA PICKLES are my favorite Pickles ever, ever, ever. If you cannot buy them made the Cajun Way, especially, then you need to preserve your own, and it's not hard at all....

Here's how:

Wash 4 pint jar and their lids and rings in hot water. Wash two pounds of very fresh, small tender, young okra. pack them into the jars. put one garlic clove, one tiny mild red pepper or a few red pepper flakes, a dash of celery seed, two to four black pepper seeds, a pinch of mustard seeds, a pinch of no-iodine salt, a pinch of dry thyme, and a pinch of onion dry flakes, into each jar with the okra. Bring a quart of white vinegar to a boil. Pour over the okra and seal. process (boil the sealed jars covered with boiling water) for ten minutes. cool slowly. check the seals. Let the pickles 'stand' in a cool, dry, dark place for eight weeks...now they are ready to eat! When you have opened a jar, keep it in the icebox. the jar will 'keep' for a week or so there. But you know, you will have eaten them all up by then!

Here's their Poem:

OKRA.
people look strangely:
slimy.
don't like Okra much...
For Some:
So Comfort -
So Thick with Good -
Gumbo -
Chowders -
Fried -
Pickled -
The South is Green
The Same as Okra...
That Thick, Dark-Gray-Green
Of Spanish Moss
Thick in Swamp Trees -
Thick like that -
Married to Roux -
Blessed by the Holy Trinity...
Celery, Onions, Green Peppers...
Taste of Home and Heat...
Slidell. Monroe. Shreveport.
South of my Young Years...
OKRA.