"dill pickles" news and stories

Photo: you can count on me, Flickr.

National Pickle Day may yet be a couple of months away, but now's the time to start perfecting your technique, as did Flickr user "You Can Count on Me." Though the pickles themselves aren't even pictured, their zingy brine looks promising, with masses of fiery floating peppercorns and sprigs of dill.

Treasured for their tangy flavor alone, pickles boast both a historic background and surprising health benefits. Vitamin-C rich pickles were packed on Christopher Columbus's fateful voyage to help the seamen fight scurvy -- and actually take their name from the ship's stocker, Amerigo Vespucci. Today, the fermented fruits are considered extra nutritious for allowing bacteria the time to create additional vitamins and are in fact more easily digested than their non-treated counterparts. So get pickling!

Check out more pickle trivia at the Science of Pickles and try the pictured recipe from blog Everybody Likes Sandwiches.

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I thought I knew my pickles -- steer clear of the sweet (I just can't take the flavor), and revel in the dill, whether that be Polish-style, deli-style, or Vlasic-style. But then I realized how incredibly pickle naive I was.

At a local farmers' market, I perused all the tables, bought my groceries, and then hit the Toorshi Foods pickle table last. I zeroed in on the garlic pickles because, well, nothing's as good as garlic. The flavor exploded in my mouth -- the rich tartness of the pickle balanced by the strong and purr-worthy flavor of garlic. This wasn't some wimpy, barely-there hint of garlic like I expected from past experience.

It was yet another reminder of how wonderful food can taste when you do it yourself, or buy it from someone who does it for you, naturally. Should you eat pickles like a ravenous fiend, it might get pricey. Just as a thin-but-tasty fast food burger can't live up to the real, thick, and juicy thing, a mass-produced pickle can't live up to the flavor of an old Armenian family recipe with no chemical preservatives or additives.

I ran across these little gems in via Tastespotting this morning, and though I can't say the thought of pickles marinated in Kool Aid sounds all that appetizing to me, I'll try to reserve judgment until I've tasted them. According to one lady interviewed by The New York Times, her method of preparation is to "pull the pickles from the jar, cut them in halves, make double-strength Kool-Aid, add a pound of sugar, shake and let it sit - best in the refrigerator - for about a week."

I do have to admit they sound kind of perfect for a kid's party, though. I have some cherry-flavored ones soaking in my fridge as we speak - I'll let you know.

(photo: The New York Times)

Source

The Boston Globe's food section got a bunch of people to taste test six brands of kosher dill pickles and give their opinion. The comments for Claussen range from "tastes like it came out of storage" to "an oyster in a pickle's body." And mind you, Claussen was the winner of the taste test.

The Globe also tested Vlasic, Mt. Olive, Boar's Head, Ba-Tampte, and Cains, and none of the brands blew the tasters away. Every single pickle tasted got a lot of negative comments, it's just that Claussen got the least amount of negative comments.

Personally, I like a lot of these pickles. I've never tasted Ba-Tampte, but the comment that it tasted like "gasoline" reminded me of one of my favorite Andy Griffith Show episodes, where Aunt Bee makes the pickles that no one likes. What do you buy when you want a dill pickle?