47 Fun Facts About Pickle

What is a pickled cucumber called in Britain, Ireland, Australia and South Africa?

Gherkin is the everyday word there, and London's skyscraper at 30 St Mary Axe is nicknamed the Gherkin because of its shape.

Which explorer did Ralph Waldo Emerson mock as 'the pickle-dealer at Seville'?

Amerigo Vespucci had supplied ships in Seville, and Emerson branded him a thief who supplanted Columbus and baptized half the earth with his own dishonest name.

Which Egyptian queen is said to have credited pickles with her health and legendary beauty?

Cleopatra is said to have prized pickles as a beauty secret; more practically, pickling kept food edible for months and fed sailors on long voyages.

Which seasoning, added generously, is the signature of a 'kosher' dill made in the New York Jewish style?

Garlic is the signature, yet a 'kosher' dill needn't be kosher under dietary law at all; it simply follows the recipe of New York's Jewish pickle makers.

In New York deli terminology, what is a 'half-sour'?

A half-sour is one given a shorter stay in the brine, so it stays crisp and bright green, while a full-sour has fermented all the way through.

Pickles are kept at pH 4.6 or lower mainly to stop the bacterium behind which illness?

Botulism is the risk: its bacterium can't grow at pH 4.6 or lower, which is why low-acid foods need a pressure canner instead of a boiling-water bath.

Which pale pink pickle is traditionally served alongside sushi?

Pickled ginger only turns faintly pink on its own when very young ginger is used, so many commercial makers dye it pink instead.

Which type of microbe produces the acidity in naturally fermented pickles?

Lactic acid bacteria turn the cucumber's sugars into lactic acid, so a true brine-fermented pickle sours itself without any vinegar.

Cornichons are small French pickles flavoured with vinegar and which herb?

Tarragon flavours the classic cornichon, and the pickle's French name literally means 'little horn', after the small fruit's curved shape.

'Koolickles', dill pickles soaked in Kool-Aid, are a treat for children in which region?

The Southern United States, above all the Mississippi Delta, is koolickle country, where a long soak in cherry Kool-Aid dyes the pickle's flesh pinkish red.

Fried dill pickles were popularised in 1963 by Bernell 'Fatman' Austin at a drive-in in which state?

Arkansas is the state: Austin never shared his recipe, so his family serves it only once a year, at the Picklefest in Atkins, where he first fried pickles.

During World War I, what patriotic name did some Americans try to give sauerkraut?

Liberty cabbage soon flopped: as H. L. Mencken observed, the word sauerkraut had already become as American as the food itself.

Which North Carolina firm lowers a glowing 3-foot pickle down a flagpole every New Year's Eve?

Mount Olive Pickle Company drops its pickle at 7 pm Eastern because that is midnight Greenwich Mean Time, so the town rings in the New Year early.

What does the first person to find the Christmas pickle ornament get?

An extra present or a lucky year is the finder's reward; the custom is billed as German, yet a 2016 YouGov poll found 91% of Germans had never heard of it.

In which Shakespeare play, set mostly on an island, does a drunken jester say he's been 'in such a pickle'?

The Tempest has Trinculo, reeling drunk, joke that he's so pickled he 'shall not fear fly-blowing', meaning no fly will lay eggs on him.

Which pickled side dish is traditionally stored for winter in earthenware onggi jars buried in the ground?

Kimchi is made in huge batches each late autumn, when communities make and share it so every household has enough to last the winter.

Which explorer took sauerkraut on his Pacific voyages to prevent scurvy?

James Cook got his wary crew to eat sauerkraut by serving it at the officers' table, and within a week he had to ration it.

In Rick and Morty's 'Pickle Rick', why does Rick turn himself into a pickle?

To avoid family therapy was the scheme, yet after battling rats and guards, Pickle Rick still ends up in the therapist's office.

In the NFL's 2000 'Pickle Juice Game', the Eagles beat which team 41-14 in 109 °F heat?

The Dallas Cowboys lost 41-14 at Texas Stadium on 3 September 2000, the Eagles having drunk pickle juice beforehand to ward off cramps in the heat.

Umeboshi, the salty pickled 'plums' of Japan, are actually more closely related to which fruit?

Apricot is the closer relative: ume, Prunus mume, sits nearer the apricot than true plums; one umeboshi on white rice makes the flag-like 'Hinomaru' bento.

Piccalilli, the yellow British mustard pickle, was adapted from which country's pickles?

India is the model: Hannah Glasse's 1758 'India Pickle' dried its vegetables in the sun, then steeped them in vinegar with mustard seed and turmeric.

Rollmops are pickled fillets of which fish, rolled around a pickled cucumber or onion?

Herring is the fish, and Czechs call the @ sign zavináč, their word for a rollmops, because the symbol looks like the rolled-up fillet.

Which Pennsylvania Dutch invention turns pickled eggs pink?

Adding beets is the Pennsylvania Dutch trick: eggs steeped in beet juice and vinegar become pink 'red beet eggs'; British pubs and chip shops sell the plain kind.

Japanese tsukemono are often pickled in a bed of what?

Rice bran is the bed: nukazuke vegetables are buried in a fermenting mash of rice bran and salt called a nukadoko, which is stirred by hand every day.

Pliny says Roman gardeners kept Emperor Tiberius in cucumbers year-round by growing them in what?

Beds on wheels let gardeners roll the plants into the sun, and in winter they sheltered them under frames glazed with mirror-stone.

Botanically speaking, what type of fruit is a cucumber?

A berry is the botanist's answer, but when the US Supreme Court ruled tomatoes vegetables for import duties in 1893, it said cucumbers are vegetables in common speech too.

Which calcium-based soak do some home canners use to make cucumbers extra crisp?

Pickling lime crisps cucumbers with its calcium, but the excess must be rinsed away before pickling, or the pickles aren't safe to keep.

Takuan, the crunchy yellow Japanese pickle, is made from which vegetable?

Daikon radish turns yellow as takuan ages, but that natural colour fades under fluorescent light, so many commercial makers dye it with turmeric or gardenia.

What do Hungarians add to a jar of cucumbers in salted water to start their summer ferment?

Slices of bread go into the jar, and a few warm summer days let them get the ferment going, so these Hungarian pickles sour without any vinegar.

Which annual pickle-themed festival is held in Pittsburgh?

Picklesburgh outgrew its riverfront bridge sites, so in 2023 organizers moved it onto three blocks of the Boulevard of the Allies.

Pickleball was improvised in 1965 by two Bainbridge Island families on a court meant for which sport?

Badminton was the plan, but the gear came up short, so the families grabbed table tennis paddles and a perforated plastic ball, and soon lowered the net.

Which company started out selling bottled horseradish before adding sauerkraut, vinegar and pickles?

Heinz's first firm went bankrupt in 1875 after a financial panic, but Henry Heinz started afresh the next year with his brother and a cousin.

In 'Little Women', which March sister, the only one at school, is punished for hiding banned pickled fruit in her desk?

Amy is struck on the palm by her teacher and made to stand before the class, so her mother takes her out of that school.

A dog named Pickles found which stolen trophy wrapped in newspaper in London?

The World Cup trophy had been stolen a week earlier, and after England won the final, Pickles joined the players' celebration at their hotel.

A Chicago-style hot dog comes with a pickle spear, but which condiment do Chicagoans famously consider off-limits?

Ketchup is the taboo, and some Chicago hot dog stands take such pride in the rule that they refuse to offer it at all.

Despite being called the West Indian gourd, the cucumber cousin Cucumis anguria is native to which continent?

Africa is its native home, though the vine has since gone wild across much of the Americas and the Caribbean.

Which vegetable do cooks in northeast China ferment to make the sour pickle suan cai?

Napa cabbage fills the giant clay vats many northeastern households pickle in, while elsewhere in China suan cai is often made from mustard greens.

At the Brooklyn bar credited with the invention, a 'pickleback' chased a shot of what with pickle brine?

Whiskey is the shot, and the Brooklyn bar chased it with McClure's pickle brine, which wipes away the liquor's taste.

Vlasic's pickle-toting stork mascot talks in the style of which comedian?

Groucho Marx lent the stork its wisecracking voice, and a stork made sense: with the baby boom over, the joke went, it needed a new line of work.

Which sandwich layers roast pork, ham, Swiss cheese, mustard and pickles?

Cuban is the sandwich, and in 2012 Tampa's city council moved to dub it the 'Historic Tampa Cuban Sandwich', to the disapproval of Miami's mayor.

In the Book of Numbers, the Israelites miss Egypt's cucumbers and demand meat, so what does God send?

Quail fell all around the camp, but while the meat was still between the people's teeth, God struck them with a great plague.

In SpongeBob's episode 'Pickles', where had Bubble Bass hidden the pickles he said SpongeBob forgot?

In his mouth, under his tongue, was the hiding place, and once SpongeBob revealed it to everyone, the embarrassed Bubble Bass ran away.

Rassolnik, the Russian soup made with pickled cucumbers and pearl barley, classically includes which offal?

Kidneys are the classic offal, yet in Gogol's Dead Souls a rassolnik is not a soup at all but a pie.

Which vegetable gives şalgam, the tart purple-red Turkish drink, its colour?

Black carrot gives şalgam its purple-red colour, and around Adana people typically drink it with their kebabs.

The schooner HMS Pickle brought Britain the news of which naval battle?

Trafalgar's news reached Falmouth aboard Pickle, and her lieutenant then raced overland to the Admiralty in London, earning promotion to commander.

In Cockney slang, what is the big vinegar-pickled gherkin sold at a fish and chip shop called?

A wally is the London chippy's big vinegar-pickled cucumber, fished from a giant counter-top jar alongside pickled onions, and the word is also Cockney for a fool.

In baseball, a runner 'in a pickle' is trapped between bases during which play?

A rundown is the play, and a trapped runner tries to prolong it, buying time for teammates on other bases to advance.