Be Art: When Will America's Pickle Obsession End?

When did we know for sure?

Was it April when Nature Made introduced its pickle-flavored gummy vitamins? Was it November when Petco’s “Pickle Mania” promotion offered 26 different pickle-themed toys for dogs and cats? It may have been December when a food researcher was heard to say, “Everyone can meet their needs with pickles.”

Or maybe it was just a few weeks ago when Instagram chef Itsmejuliette (no stranger to online pickling activities) posted a cheeky challenge to her Cooking Without Rules feed: “This is your cue to surprise your neighbor with a pickle wreath. More than 70,000 people have liked his style or at least his post.

At the intersection of health and wellness, traditionalism and hipsterism, global culture and the American stomach, pickles in 2024 find themselves among the food of words like “viral” and “trend,” just like food’s cousins as object of fetish. – bacon and ranch dressing, especially – experienced in years past. Prepared Foods, an industry newsletter, put it bluntly in September: “The pickle craze is at an all-time high.”

Tangy Pickle Doritos. Grill Meats Dill Seasoning for your steak. Portable bags of pickles. Pickled mayonnaise, pickled hummus, pickled cookies, pickled gum. Spicy Pickle Challenges. Return shots to the post. Pickle juice and Dr. Pepper Heaven help us. Corn puffs have a pickled color and taste and are naturally called Pickle Balls. In Pittsburgh, the birthplace of the modern American pickle (HJ Heinz, I’m talking to you), a summer festival called Picklesburgh draws pickle and pickle enthusiasts from several states away for copious amounts of pickle beer washed down with brine, or vice versa.

Starting in 2025, two possible outcomes show themselves. First: The pre-existing Nobro Pickle has cemented itself into the core of the American stomach for the foreseeable future. Second: It may have played itself out, and Tarshi (to mix a metaphor) has jumped the shark.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

“I think pickles in general have had a resurgence,” says Emily Ruby, who knew. He is the curator and Heinz company history specialist for the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, a few miles down the road from this industrial area, where Henry J. Heinz produced its first packaged pickles in the 19th century. In fact, pickles are now a $3.1 billion annual market in the United States and growing steadily.

Let’s skip the obvious question. Summary: Sour nation, sour mood, sour foods? Maybe just a little.

It’s been a scary few years for a lot of people. In 2024 we needed something we could agree on. Maybe it’s the pickle.

“I was amazed at how pickles can be all things to all people,” says Plakias, whose latest book is about being awkward. “All these different food identities in 2024, and no matter who you’re thinking of, pickles can be for them.”

To see how this might happen, we can look to the powerful avenues of marketing and social media.

The garden-variety American pickle is crisp and tart, with its own aggressive flavor, but a distinct springiness that lends itself to other “flavor profiles” (Soul Pepper Pickles! Garlic Pickles, Horseradish Pickles, Buttery Bread & Chips!). They’re also surprisingly low in fat—the rare food trend that’s not entirely bad for you—and offer some of the probiotic benefits of fermentation. All the key marketing tips

From a positioning perspective, it’s kind of a pickle at the intersection of pickle-slash-traditional (Mom, Lower East Side, preservation, harvesting) and slash-slash-slightly subversive (sour, spicy, pickle factories set up in revitalized industrial neighborhoods). ) exists. .

It’s not like I come from a long line of pickle sellers. But I realized that a pickle is a blank slate and you can color it with all kinds of brines, spices, salts and sugars,” says John Patterson, who founded Pittsburgh Pickles with his brothers in a church kitchen a decade ago.

“A pickle is something you can lean on and count on,” he says. “Pickles are always funny for some reason. Pickles are never bad. “It is a peaceful and beneficial business.”

(He says about the cucumbers themselves: “Almost God wanted them to be pickled.”

A pickle sits in a bucket of brine at a stand in Picklesburgh, Pittsburgh.

Pickles are, let’s be honest, usually green and bumpy and inherently unattractive. This means that even social video beginners don’t need precise lighting to produce engaging pickle content.

Credit — or blame — TikTok for some of the craziness. As you watch the detailed chronicles of pickle cake baking, pickle wreath making and pickle pizza crafting, you’ll realize that the social platform is made as much for dill as it is for dancing. Pickle videos there regularly get 2 million views, and as of this week TikTok has reported more than 251 million pieces of pickle content for the snack.

Then there’s the Great Glycol Wave of 2024—another social media oddity that involves pouring “edible glitter” (who knew?) into a jar of pickles and creating a “tickling”— Apparently, a sexier, prettier and even more Instagrammable version of pickles. Again, who knew?).

Finally, covid probably played an important role. After years of increasing vegetarianism, the pandemic’s forced inward focus in 2020 and 2021 has many Americans reexamining their approaches to food, including baking sourdough bread and, yes, pickling things. . This is what Nora Rubel, who studies food and culture, calls the “grandmother’s embrace of culture” by grandchildren. Gen Z takes pickles as their thing. It’s the new avocado toast, says Rubel, professor of Jewish studies at the University of Rochester.

“Pickles are kind of funny too. You can make a lot of puns about pickles, just kind of stupid. It’s intense flavor, but there’s also a kind of silliness to them. (He was also heard to say, “Sweet pickles are something I find very seductive and uncomfortable.”)

If you see a theme emerging, it’s not exactly new, but it’s worth repeating: packaged food is no longer just something to eat. Instead, like most immersive restaurants these days, it often presents itself as a multimedia experience—something to be talked about and enjoyed, to join like-minded communities, to incorporate into one’s personality. A lifestyle pickle, as it were.

YE The Year of the PickleA pickle display is on display at the Giant Eagle Market in Glenshaw.

“It’s symbolic of how we engage with food in our daily lives and with each other in 2024,” said Minji (MJ) Kim, an assistant professor of communication at Flagler College in Florida who studies how media influences people’s food choices.

“Sour has duality. When milk or meat or vegetables smell sour, it is a sign of corruption. This is a natural warning system. Kim says: We equate pickle with risk. On the other hand, when the pickling is intentional—lemon, apple cider vinegar, Greek yogurt—it becomes a sign of health and attractiveness. This changes the perception of pickles from a danger to something acceptable.

There you have it: pickles as acceptable, delicious, even obsession-worthy.

So, as the popularity of pickles continues to soar—no direct connection—as fried pickles transcend their novelty status and become dining pioneers across the land, and when someone’s pet plays with one of the 26 pickle toys We leave you. Dueling with two minds as America makes its way into a new year.

From Rubel, this: “You can pickle everything now. This is really my time.”

And from Delish, the food website, says: “Can we give pickles a break in 2025? They’re tired. And we’re tired of them.”