In Honor of National Pickle Day, established by the Pickle Packers Association in 1949
The word “pickle” in English comes to us from the Dutch pekel or northern German pókel, meaning “salt” or “brine.” Pickles have been around for at least 4,000 years. Some accounts say they are native to India, others that they were invented in Mesopotamia. They made their debut in the Americas via Christopher Columbus. He (or someone) had figured out that brine-soaked pickles had the advantage of preventing scurvy on long voyages. Cleopatra liked them. So did Napoleon. So do we, if for no other reason than “pickle” is a fun word to say.
PICKLE FACTORIES IN CAMBRIDGE:
The Harvard Pickle Works, Inc., located at 172 Thorndike Street.
Fickle Pickle fact: In 2020 Americans were eating 20 billion pickles a year.
H.J. Heinz & Co. Warehouse, located at 201 Vassar Street.
H.J. Heinz an Co. was founded in 1869 in Pittsburgh, PA by Henry John Heinz, the “Pickle King”. In 1915, the company built a plant at 201 Vassar Street in Cambridge. In 1968, the property was sold to MIT.
Fickle Pickle fact: In 2018 someone calculated if each pickle sold in America that year were about 6” long it would take 2.4 million pickles to get to the moon.
Sanborn, Parker & Co., a Boston pickle concern with a manufacturing plant in East Cambridge.
Fickle Pickle fact: During WWII 40% of all pickle production was allocated to the ration kits of the armed forces.
ADVICE FOR PICKLERS
Fickle Pickle fact: pickle crunches can be heard from ten paces away.
It wasn’t just cucumbers that were pickled. Here is a “Receipt” for pickled peaches:
“Receipts” for what we now call “recipes” was the usual term through much of the 18th century. In the 19th century, the term “recipes” outpaced “receipts” although both words can still be found in usage until the early 20th century.
NOT JUST FOR CRUNCHING: OTHER USES FOR PICKLES AND PICKLE JUICE
We now know that because of its high sodium content, sports players often drink pickle juice to replace what they used in sweating. Pickle juice also stimulates a “neurological reflex that prevents muscles from cramping.” But did you know that it is effective at putting out fires?
VINEGAR
Of course, you can’t talk about pickles without talking about vinegar. One of the largest purveyors of vinegar in Cambridge was Joseph A. Holmes & Co:
In the 1880s, vinegar became a hotter topic than you might imagine. In 1879, Congress passed the “Whiskey Vinegar Law.” While aimed at prohibiting the adulteration of foodstuffs (in part by stating that all vinegar had to contain at least 5% acidity), it also allowed whiskey distillers to use whiskey in the manufacture of alcoholic vapor vinegar, which they called “white wine vinegar.”
A big complicated hoo-ha ensued, involving charges of illicit distilling, food adulteration, tax avoidance and undercutting the apple cider market, and it all got tangled up with a regional Eastern vs Western issue. Most “whiskey vinegar” was produced in the west, and the “alcoholic vapor” process was cheaper. To combat what they saw as undercutting the market for their apple cider vinegar, the eastern apple growers focused on the idea that the law allowed anybody to open a “vinegar distillery” which, while cranking out vinegar, would also be able to crank out barrels of nefarious illicit whiskey without taxation.
The result of the controversy caused Cambridge (and other cities) to create the position of “Inspector of Vinegar,” a job often combined with the “Inspector of Milk.” It is not clear if the law was ever repealed.
THE MANY USES OF VINEGAR
Now that you know more about the vinegar crises than you ever thought you would need, here are some entertaining articles about the uses of vinegar.
To prevent smoking lamps…
As a teeth-cleaning solution…
As a wart remover…
As fascinating entertainment…
As a cure for poisonous wounds…
MORE FICKLE PICKLE FACTS FROM THE INTERNET
You want to avoid being in “de pekel zitten” (Dutch) if you can avoid it. It literally translates as sitting in the pickle, and has come to mean just plan ole drunk.
But you can also be “in a pickle” if you are in a quandary. Shakespeare used the phrase in The Tempest when Alsono asks: “How camest thou in this pickle?” and Trincuclo responds “I have been in such a pickle since I saw you last that, I fear me, will never out of my bones.” Poor Trinculo meant he had been drunk, but eventually the phrase came to mean being in a tricky situation, or a quandary.
Nutritional facts: Pickles provide 20% of the daily recommended amount of vitamin K, which helps your blood clot, 6% of the calcium adults need for strong bones, teeth and healthy nerves, and
6% of your daily requirement of potassium, which also helps your nervous system.
Pickleball, a sort of paddle tennis game, was founded in 1965. Its creators called it “pickleball” in recognition of the “pickle boat” – – a hodge-podge thrown together crew in in crew races. And that reference, in turn, was to the last boat in English yacht races which was called the “fisher,” because that boat, coming in last, would stop along the way to fish for herring which were then – – you’ve got it – – pickled.
Today’s post was written by CHC volunteer Kathleen Fox.
Sources
https://www.history.com/news/pickles-history-timeline
https://www.mtolivepickles.com
https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2010/06/09/snap-crunch-that-s-a-pickle/
Middlesex South Registry of Deeds
Cambridge Public Library: Digitized Newspapers
https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/health-benefits-pickles
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/408287/recipe-vs-receiptps:
https://medium.com/@specialisedgeneralist/
https: //www.mtolivepickles.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/G2-3-Pickles-Are-Popular.pdf
https://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/history-pickles/