I think I have a jar problem.

You see, I’m a pickler – and for my pickles, I need a lot of jars.   Bento Box Lunch Box

My biggest is a girthy 3.3 litre mama called Hotel Scobifornia, for my kombucha scobies. My littlest is a teeny-weeny strawberry jam jar I stole from a Parisian hostel. My thumbs have reddened under hot water, from rubbing sticky labels off plum sauce bottles. The odd silhouettes of maple syrup jars stand out. Wecks and Ball Masons are my Ferraris, their wordmarks glistening in the sunny glass. 

What started as a single shelf of jars has trickled to three, and occasionally, onto the bookcase. My fridge has an impenetrable layer of ferment-filled containers at the back, too. I also use spare jars as vessels to stick-blend sauces in, as impromptu flower vases, and daggy hipster cups.

But I’m not alone.

Margaret Sevenjhazi confronts her jar collection. Source: Margaret Sevenjhazi

At the start of the year, I attended Kojicon, a virtual fortnight-long gathering about mould-based fermentation, including but not limited to the fungus-y saccharified rice at the core of many Asian ferments, koji.

During the kick-off, an attendee video-shared their funky ferments and let slip a confession: “Sorry, I have a lot of jars." One of the presenters, the director of fermentation at Id Est Hospitality Group, Mara King, responded: “Who here doesn’t have a jar problem?”

This opened up a Pandora’s box (or Pandora’s Kilner) of tales and laughter about the many jars us picklers possess. Said Kojicon co-founder Rich Shih jokingly, “It’s only a problem for your significant other.” 

After the conference, I asked King more about her stash of jars.

“It's pretty huge,” King says, “But it fluctuates when I leave them places or give items away.” Much like the ferments inside the jars, her collection is a living breathing organism, growing and contracting.

The kinds of vessels she has accumulated through Asian markets and garage sales are as varied as a bacterial colony as well. Split between her home lab and work kitchens, King has “Ball jars”, “Chinese-style and Korean-style fermentation containers” all in regular rotation, as well as “two-gallon jars”, “a three-gallon glass carboy” with bigger ones in storage, and huge “stainless-steel Italian fermentation containers” for kvass and water kefir. 

Just one of the writer's jar-filled shelves. Source: Margaret Sevenjhazi

“Does it ever feel out of hand?” I ask.

“We currently share our dining room space with my ever-growing collection of ferments and fermentation equipment,” she says. “I took the extension out of our previously long dining room table, so we now eat around a… modest round table. My family has to squeeze in and out of their seats at dinnertime. They don't really complain much. Sometimes they make fun of me, but they are pretty accepting of my idiosyncrasies.”

King explains that the current situation is a stopgap solution while a dedicated space is built at The Wolf’s Tailor in Denver, Colorado, one of the restaurants she ferments for. King’s collection is clearly justified and her situation is somewhat common across the pickling community. For the most part, our jar collections are the necessary and innocuous by-products of a healthy hobby. But after coming across several examples of jars encroaching on shared living spaces (mine included), I wondered when a 'jar problem’ becomes too problematic.

“Who here doesn’t have a jar problem?”

To find out, I spoke with Dr Jan Eppingstall, a counsellor with a PhD in Hoarding Psychology and the founder of Stuffology.

“Hoarding is extreme difficulty discarding possessions because the person anticipates an unbearable level of anxiety should they do so,” Eppingstall explains. 

“Imagine you only have one photograph of your child and there is no copy or way to get another. Someone asks you to rip it up and toss it in the bin. This is the feeling of a person who hoards when they contemplate letting go of seemingly insignificant items.”

According to Eppingstall, this can stem from “interpersonal trauma”, with hoarding becoming “a coping mechanism for traumatic childhoods where relationships were unsafe and/or uncertain and possessions offered stability and continuity".

“One of the core drivers of hoarding behaviours is scrupulosity,” she says. “In the case of hoarding, there is pathological guilt and obsession about avoiding waste.”

As the child of first-generation immigrant Filipino and Hungarian parents, this resonates with me (I still vividly recall a family friend downing several rotten bananas at airport security to avoid binning them at customs). That proclivity toward un-wastefulness is common for kids of immigrants, and it seems, picklers and hoarders alike. 

A small sample of the writer's jar collection. Emphasis on ‘small’. Source: Margaret Sevenjhazi

Eppingstall says hoarding reaches clinical levels when “rooms become unusable for their original purpose”, or when there’s “distress for the hoarder or those living with them”, especially if there’s no insight into the problem.

My partner and I have definitely had a few heated conversations about the dangerous amounts of glassware on high shelves that could fall if I retrieved them clumsily. I recall another anecdote by a Kojicon presenter who had to bin one of her ‘smellier’ ferments when her husband joked about divorcing her over it. Eppingstall tells me about one particular client (who was happy to share this): they recently threw out frozen pumpkin soup and preserved plums, both from 2011.

It seems a jar problem might (or might not) be more of a problem than it appears on the surface. So what’s a pickler in this pickle to do?

“If this behaviour is hoarding – excessive amount of empty jars, uneaten preserves, etc, that's preventing the use of living areas of the home – therapy is needed,” Eppingstall says. “If not, then it’s a matter of project management.”

For this, she recommends making agreements with loved ones about the number and type of jars to be saved and their purpose, where they’ll be stored, and what to do with them once full (perhaps they'll be sold, gifted, or used). Plans and timeframes can reduce friction and “stewing”, Eppingstall jokes. “Pardon the pun.”

Jar problems can be solved, if, by her definition, they are even a problem to begin with. They may just be a beautiful personality quirk.

“Picklers are a special breed,” says King. “I'm just weird and my family knows it.”

Love the story? Follow the author Margaret Sevenjhazi here: Instagram @bottomfeeder.food.

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While I was sudying art restoration, for several weeks I got the opportunity to work in the Armenian monastery of the island of San Lazzaro in Venice. One of my favourite parts of the day was breakfast, when the monks supplied coffee, fette biscottate (dried slices of bread), butter, and a large, deep-pink jar of their famous rose petal jam. 

Instead of rinsing out those last bits from your jars of spreads, you can add some extra ingredients to the jars and shake them up for resourceful dressings, sauces and stocks.

I typically cook my XO sauce for about 5 hours so it's a bit of a commitment. Once the water has evaporated and you have a deep red, oil-based sauce, season to your liking with the sugar and seal in clean, sterilised jars.

Almost every household in Korea will have a jar of cabbage kimchi sitting in the fridge or in an underground cellar, fermenting away. And every family will have their own closely guarded secret recipe for the best kimchi.

750ml Food Container SBS acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country and their connections and continuous care for the skies, lands and waterways throughout Australia.