During dinner last night I was educated (just when I thought I knew it all!!) on the history and MANY varieties of the pickle. It is not that I have lived a ‘pickle-less’ life; I spent the better part of four years working for a in a kosher kitchen for a Rabbi, during this time I chopped, sliced and diced my weight in dill pickles many times over. Throughout my childhood I was exposed to what I would consider the regular pickles: bread and butter, dill, gherkins (my favorite), deliciously deep-fried pickles and of course the glass pickle I bought Kathy and Terry to hang on their Christmas Tree (yet another epic Christmas present in a series of epic presents).
So last night when my Uncle Alan pulled out a jar of what he claimed to be pickles, but looked to me like a jar of mush and something diced, I was rather surprised. It turns out I am practically a pickle virgin!
Fun pickle facts (just knowing that I think facts about pickles are fun is further proof that I am a teacher):
- Americans consume 26-billion pickles a year. That’s about nine pounds of pickles per person...explains a lot.
- More than half the cucumbers grown in the U.S. are made into pickles.
- Amerigo Vespucci, for whom America is named, was a pickle merchant before becoming an explorer.
- This one shocked me: kosher pickles aren’t necessary ‘kosher’ (ie. prepared under rabinnical supervision) but were made in the manner of Jewish New York City pickle makers...ie they used a TON of garlic and dill!!
The history of the pickle goes all the way back to 2030/40 BC with the Mesopotamians, they came to Western Europe around 900 from Sumatra. The history is of the pickle is actually rather ‘regal’; The pickle is mentioned in the Bible in Numbers 11:5 and Isaiah 1:8, Aristotle thought they had healing qualities, Julius Caesar fed them to his troops because he believed they contained both physical and spiritual strengthening characteristics, Shakespeare using even used pickling as a metaphor in the play Hamlet. Thomas Jefferson was quoted with what I can positively say is the most beautiful way I have ever heard a pickle described: "On a hot day in Virginia, I know nothing more comforting than a fine spiced pickle, brought up trout-like from the sparkling depths of the aromatic jar below the stairs of Aunt Sally's cellar." And to top off the list of famous pickle-eaters the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Dallas Cowboys (American football teams for my non-Canadian readers) 41-14 in September of 2000. The players claimed the win to the strength they gained from drinking pickle juice (another example of American ‘brilliance’).
Polish, Hungarian, Swedish, Danish, , brined, candied, lime, half-sour, sour and Tsukemono (done in soy brine) are the pickles that my Blessington Road upbringing did not expose me to. Oh, and apparently there are also ‘Kool-Aid Pickles’ which claim to be famous in the Southern United States...but I think this type of pickle can just be added to the list of things that Americans have tried to ‘improve’ but have ruined. (The USA apparently also has an International Pickle Day in New York City...unsurprisingly weird).
http://www.nyfoodmuseum.org/_ptime.htm
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