50 Fun Facts About Pickle

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

The word comes from early modern Dutch gurken or augurken, meaning small pickled cucumber.

One hypothesis holds that cucumbers were first pickled around 2030 BC in the valley of which river?

The cucumbers themselves came from India; another story credits workers on the Great Wall of China.

Which Egyptian queen credited the pickles in her diet with her health and legendary beauty?

Ancient writers were already noting pickles' nutritional benefits thousands of years ago.

A 'kosher' dill gets its name from what?

It is not necessarily kosher under dietary law; dill pickles have been served in New York since at least 1899.

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

It stays crisp and bright green, while a full-sour has fermented all the way.

Pickling solutions typically have a pH of what or lower?

Acidity and salt stop enzymes and microbes; natural fermentation by lactic acid bacteria supplies the acid.

The word 'pickle' derives from a Middle Dutch or Low German word, pekel, meaning what?

In Middle English pikel first meant a spicy sauce served with meat or fish.

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

Vinegar is not needed in a true brine-fermented pickle.

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

They are made from gherkins, cucumbers of 3 to 13 cm with bumpy skin.

Fanning's bread-and-butter variety, trademarked in 1923, is named after what?

Omar and Cora Fanning trademarked the name in 1923 after trading surplus small cucumbers with their grocer.

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

Fruit punch and cherry are the favourite flavours, and the flesh turns pink.

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

His secret recipe is used once a year at Picklefest in Atkins; his dipping sauce was ketchup, since ranch did not exist yet.

Which pickle brand, introduced in 1942, was founded by a Croat immigrant in Detroit?

Franjo Vlašić arrived in 1912 and started with a small creamery; the first pickle plant was in Imlay City, Michigan. Conagra bought the brand in 2018.

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

That is midnight Greenwich Mean Time; the firm sells more than 230 million jars a year.

According to Christmas pickle tradition, what happens to the first person to find the pickle ornament?

Americans believe it is a German custom, but 91% of Germans polled had never heard of it.

Which Michigan town billed itself the Christmas pickle capital and held a pickle parade from 1992 to 2005?

The tradition may date to the 1890s, when Woolworths began importing German glass ornaments.

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

Both Koreas have had kimchi-related traditions inscribed on UNESCO's intangible heritage list, and a low-calorie 'space kimchi' flew with astronaut Yi So-yeon in 2008.

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

Despite its German name, sauerkraut did not originate in Germany.

'Pickle Rick', the episode that won Rick and Morty its first Emmy, aired in which year?

Written by Jessica Gao, it took the 2018 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program.

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

Athletes drink it to prevent cramps; BYU players downed two and a half gallons in a comeback that same year.

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

Samurai ate them against battle fatigue; one on white rice makes a 'Hinomaru' bento resembling the flag.

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

Hannah Glasse's 1758 recipe called it 'Paco-Lilla, or India Pickle'.

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

Pickled herring is eaten at midnight on New Year's Eve in Poland, Germany and parts of Scandinavia for luck.

Which Pennsylvania Dutch invention turns pickled eggs pink?

Pickled eggs are a fixture of British pubs and chip shops and keep for three to four months.

Japanese tsukemono are often pickled in a bed of what?

They are served with rice, with drinks, and as a course of the tea ceremony's kaiseki meal.

Georg Rumphius suggested the South Asian word 'achar' derived from an Arawakan word for what?

Achar is now a globally sold product but remains a marker of South Asian cultural identity.

Giardiniera, the pickled vegetable relish, comes from which country's cuisine?

In the US the spicy version is called 'hot mix' and goes on everything from bratwurst to tuna salad.

Roughly what percentage of a cucumber is water?

Cucumbers were domesticated in India at least 3,000 years ago and were eaten year-round by the emperor Tiberius.

The Spanish brought cucumbers to the Americas in which year of the Columbian exchange?

Charlemagne had them grown for him in the Middle Ages.

Which soaking treatment, using a calcium compound rather than salt brine, makes some pickles crisper?

The calcium firms the texture; it is rinsed off before the pickles are finished.

Polish ogórek kiszony pickles are fermented exclusively in a brine containing what?

The style developed across northern central and eastern Europe; Germans call them Salzgurken.

In some traditional recipes, what is placed in the jar and left in the sun to kick-start fermentation?

The yeast in the bread gets the fermentation going within a few days.

Which annual pickle-themed festival is held in Pittsburgh?

Atkins, Arkansas, holds Picklefest each May in honour of the fried pickle.

Which sport, legendarily named partly after a founder's dog, was invented in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington?

Joel Pritchard, later a congressman, devised it with two friends; Washington made it the state sport in 2022.

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

Its '57 Varieties' slogan came in 1896, when it already sold more than 60 products; 5 and 7 were the founder's and his wife's lucky numbers.

'Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers' was first published in which year?

It appeared in John Harris's Peter Piper's Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation.

Per the New York Food Museum, Mesopotamians were pickling food as far back as when?

Cucumbers native to India came to the Tigris valley centuries later.

How salty is the brine for traditional fermented pickles, in grams of salt per litre?

Vinegar is not needed at all in a naturally fermented pickle.

Which of these is the West Indian species, a close relative of the cucumber sometimes used for pickles?

Ordinary cucumbers are Cucumis sativus.

Which of these is a Chinese fermented cabbage said by some to date from the building of the Great Wall?

Sour cabbage, sauerkraut and kimchi are all made by salting the vegetables to draw out water.

A 'pickleback' is a shot of pickle juice chased after a shot of what?

Athletes prefer smaller 'pickle juice shooters' for cramps; a 2008 BYU study found the brine relieved cramps about 37 percent faster than water.

The stork mascot a pickle brand introduced in 1974 talks in the style of which comedian?

The stork holds a pickle like a cigar and leaned on the myth that pregnant women crave pickles: 'after all, who's a better pickle expert?'

In the UK, 'pickle' on its own usually means a sweet vinegary chutney such as which brand?

It's a staple of the ploughman's lunch; Britons reserve 'gherkin' for the pickled cucumber Americans simply call a pickle.

During World War II, what share of US pickle output did the government reserve for the military?

Pickles were valued as a cheap, long-keeping source of salt and vitamin K in soldiers' rations.

In 2002 the FTC blocked a pickle merger to stop a monopoly. Which Chicago-area brand was the target?

The brand is sold uncooked from the chilled aisle, and a 1992 ad showed its pickles snapping while rivals merely bent; a complaint from a competitor failed.

Rassolnik, a Russian soup, combines pickled cucumbers and pearl barley with which meat?

The dish goes back at least to the 15th century, when it went by the name kalya.

In Turkey, pickle juice drunk at social events is often red thanks to brine from what?

Turks also sip it as a hangover remedy, a use American bar-goers would recognise.

Which food giant bought the stork-mascot pickle brand in 1978 and spun it off in 1998?

The spun-off company filed for Chapter 11 in 2001 and the brand now sits under Conagra's Pinnacle Foods.

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

They're fished out of giant counter-top jars alongside pickled onions in chippies across southern England.

Hamburger Stackers, launched in 1999 to cover a whole burger, were cut from cucumbers how long?

The specially cultivated cucumbers were also over three inches across, so a single chip could blanket the patty.