Michael Gawenda, the former editor of The Age newspaper, will take centre stage to demonstrate the art of pickling as part of the museum's Can We Talk About Poland? exhibition.

As a boy Mr Gawenda would watch as his father pickled "pounds and pounds" of small cucumbers that he had bought from the Queen Victoria Markets.

"My father did hardly any cooking at all, I can't remember him cooking, but he certainly did the pickling," he said.

The family theme will run through the weekend's event, with Mr Gawenda's children Evie and Husky to perform traditional Yiddish music as part of the Bashevis Singers.

Visitors to the museum will also be able to view images of post-war Poland from by photographers Arnold Zable and Lindsay Goldberg.

Keeping your pickles crisp

Over summer, Mr Gawenda's family would pickle enough cucumbers to give away to friends and family.

"It's really a summer thing, the growers grow them from December to around the end of March," he said.

Mr Gawenda recalled his father washing the cucumbers in the laundry sink, where they were left soaking in ice water for more than two hours.

"If you kept them cold for a few hours in that water they remained crisp when they were pickled," he said.

This, he said, was the big difference between homemade and store-bought dill pickles.

"Most of the pickles in jars, or tins for that matter, aren't crisp," he said.

"There is nothing like pickles that are homemade and are eaten not long after they're ready."