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Episode 3

The Strange History of Pickles

26:00

Why do pickles come with sandwiches? Caleb and Hazel uncover pickles buried beneath a Kansas cornfield, a tiny pickle that caused a commotion at the World's Fair, and the surprisingly strange stories behind fried pickles, bread-and-butter pickles, and more.

Episode Summary

When a steamboat sank in the Missouri River in 1856, nobody expected part of its cargo to turn up more than a century later beneath a Kansas cornfield. But when the Arabia was excavated in 1988, its astonishingly well-preserved contents included bottles of green sweet pickles.

That discovery leads Caleb and Hazel into the surprising history of a familiar food. How did people learn to preserve cucumbers, and why did a cold, crunchy pickle become the natural companion to an American sandwich? They explore the influence of immigrant food traditions, then head to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, where H. J. Heinz used a tiny pickle-shaped souvenir to draw visitors to his upstairs exhibit.

The journey also takes in the mysteries of bread-and-butter pickles and the Arkansas drive-in that helped make fried dill pickles famous. Behind something as ordinary as a pickle spear is a story of preservation, immigration, clever advertising, and American ingenuity.

Interesting Discoveries

  • 132-year-old pickles: The steamboat Arabia sank in 1856. When its cargo was recovered in 1988, bottles still held recognizable green sweet pickles.
  • The sandwich connection: Eastern European Jewish pickle traditions helped make sour pickles a fixture of American delicatessens. There is no documented single inventor of the sandwich-and-pickle pairing.
  • Heinz's tiny giveaway: At the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, visitors climbed to Heinz's upstairs booth for a pickle-shaped charm just over an inch long. According to the Heinz History Center, police helped manage the crowd.
  • A name older than the Depression: The Fannings filed a trademark for bread-and-butter pickles in 1923, before the Great Depression. The familiar Depression-era naming story cannot be accurate as usually told.
  • Fifteen slices for fifteen cents: In 1963, Bernell "Fatman" Austin sold fried dill-pickle slices at the Duchess Drive In in Arkansas. His is a well-documented commercial origin story, though not proof that he invented every kind of fried pickle.

Sources and Further Reading