Did you know that Americans consume more than 9 pounds of pickles per person a year (Pickle Packers International, Inc.)?
Eat a pickle this November 14th in honor of Pickle Day!
Pickling is not limited to the cucumber, but it is one of the oldest food preservation methods to submerge foods in solutions such as vinegar or brine (History.com). The word "pickle" comes from the words meaning salt orbrine in Dutch "pekel" and northern German "pókel" (PBS.org). Before becoming an explorer, America's namesake, Amerigo Vespucci, worked as the ships chandler for Christopher Columbus's ships and sent pickles for the sailors.
Americans have long celebrated the pickle, and in 1949 the Pickle Packers Association hosted their inaugural Pickle Week celebration. Photos from the event consist of Mr. Dill Pickle floating in a vat of pickles, The Pickle Queen posing with The Three Stooges, and an entire throne and scepter made with pickles adorning each available surface. New York continues to celebrate Pickle Day as "a slice of the city’s history, reminiscent of when the streets of the Lower East Side were lined with pushcarts peddling their goods and wares for sale to a neighborhood of from immigrants from far and wide (pickleday.nyc)."
If you're considering making your own, peruse our cookbooks for your pickling needs:
Additionally, the National Center for Home Food Preservation has a website that includes information about how to pickle. Click this link to access their website.
In a pickle about what to read? Check out a pickle story!
Sauerkraut
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A new quirky-funny book from the author of Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer about a boy whose plans for the summer go sideways when the ghost of his great-great-grandmother demands his attention. HD Schenk is a maker--an inventor, a builder of things. He wants to show everyone what he can do, and his plan is to build his own computer and enter it in the county fair. To earn money for the parts, HD has promised to clean out his uncle's basement. Simple enough--until a voice starts talking to him about cabbage. Funny thing--it seems that the ghost of his great-great-grandmother is haunting a dusty old pickling crock. And she has a grand plan, too. She wants HD to make her famous recipe for sauerkraut and enter it in the county fair so that she can be declared pickle queen. After some initial shock, HD is willing enough to help. This ghost is family, after all. But a person can only enter one thing at the fair--and only HD can really see and hear his grandmother, which is going to make ithard for her to enter on her own. . . . Kelly Jones spins a wonderfully goofy ghost tale that celebrates creative problem solving, family ties, and makers of every variety.
An American Pickle
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An American Pickle stars Seth Rogen as Herschel Greenbaum, a struggling labourer who immigrates to America in 1919 with dreams of building a better life for his beloved family. One day, while working at his factory job, he falls into a vat of pickles and is brined for 100 years. The brine preserves him perfectly and when he emerges in present day Brooklyn, he finds that he hasn't aged a day. But when he seeks out his family, he learns that his only surviving relative is his great-grandson Ben Greenbaum (also played by Rogen), a mild-mannered computer coder whom Herschel can't even begin to understand.
Garfield gets in a pickle
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A compilation of Garfield strips features the insatiable, unrepentant feline sleeping, snacking, and snarking his way through interactions with the long-suffering Jon, Odie, Nermal, and other favorite companions.
TROUBLE ON THE LOOSE!
Garfield, the furry desperado, is at large again in this most-wanted collection of comics. Whether he’s getting in a pickle or a jam, when it comes to trouble, the fat cat is always a glutton for punishment!
In a pickle: a family farm story
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The year is 1955. Andy Meyer, a young farmer, manages the pickle factory in Link Lake, a rural town where the farms are small, the conversation is meandering, and the feeling is distinctly Midwestern. Workers sort, weigh, and dump cucumbers into huge vats where the pickles cure, providing a livelihood to local farmers. But the H.H. Harlow Pickle Company has appeared in town, using heavy-handed tactics to force family farmers to either farm the Harlow way or lose their biggest customer--and, possibly, their land. Andy, himself the owner of a half-acre pickle patch, works part-time for the Harlow Company, a conflict that places him between the family farm and the big corporation. As he sees how Harlow begins to change the rural community and the lives of its people, Andy must make personal, ethical, and life-changing decisions.
A dilly of a death
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China Bayles is in a pickle. The daughter of her best friend, Ruby, has turned up on her doorstep, pregnant and in need of a place to live. And her otherwise sensible husband has announced that he's bored with teaching and ready for a career change. Say "hello" to P.I. Mike McQuaid and Associates. There aren't actually any "associates" - unless you count Ruby and China, of course. But the title does have a nice, official ring to it. His first client is Phoebe the Pickle Queen, owner of the biggest little pickle business in Texas. According to Phoebe, her plant manager is embezzling, and she wants McQuaid to follow the money. Meanwhile, Pecan Springs is hosting the annual Picklefest - and this year, China and Ruby are on the planning committee, along with Phoebe. But just days before the festival starts, the Pickle Queen disappears. Some say she sold her business and split; others think the answer may lie with her missing boyfriend. It's up to McQuaid and China to search for the Pickle Queen - and for clues in a case that promises to leave a very sour taste.
Access the audiobook here.