The darker side of pickles

There’s also a darker connection between Jews and pickles, according to Jane Ziegelman, director of the culinary program at New York City’s Tenement Museum and author of “97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement.”

“Non-Jews in the early 20th century had a violent reaction I still don’t understand against pickles favored by Jewish immigrants,” Ziegelman told the Forward. “They identified the pickle with everything that was wrong with immigrant food ways and cooking.”

“Pickles were seen as stimulants because they were so garlicky, sour, vinegary and strongly flavored, which in turn created other bodily cravings,” Ziegelman explained. “And when children ate pickles, [it was thought that] they set themselves on a dangerous path in which they would require stronger and stronger flavors until food would no longer answer those cravings.”

Caffeine would come next, then alcohol, “then who knows,” Ziegelman said. “Pickles were a gateway drug, essentially, to a world of caffeine and opiates. There was a kind of insanity surrounding pickles.” Think of it as a fermented version of Reefer Madness.

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