Last year, I spent several evenings at a carnival in Woodbury Heights, New Jersey, with my dad and nephews. As we debated between cheese fries and funnel cake, a curious call caught my attention: “Get your pickle on a stick! Pickle on a stick for just three dollars!” The growing queue for this carnival treat intrigued me. It’s a pickle. On a stick.
I wondered, what’s the big deal?
“During really hot days, they beat ice cream,” explains Peggy Grodinsky, a writer and editor for Maine’s Portland Press Herald. Grodinsky wrote about pickle sticks in the summer of 2020 after trying one at Snell Family Farm in Buxton, Maine. “I’m not knocking ice cream, which I love. But ice cream can be deceptive, making you think it’s light when it’s made with milk, cream, and often eggs. Many pickles are made with vinegar, and they just feel much lighter—even invigorating—when you’re eating them.”
Pickles are definitely having a moment, with pickling workshops available from San Francisco to Billings, Montana, and gourmet pickle shops popping up in places like Midland, Texas, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. For many, the appeal of cucumbers preserved in brine or vinegar is undeniable. They’re crunchy, refreshing, and packed with sodium, which can help keep you hydrated on a hot summer day. However, they can be messy. “There’s a practical argument for pickles on sticks,” says Rod Phillips, a historian at Carleton University in Ottawa specializing in food and wine. “You don’t get your fingers coated in brine or juice, and it makes them more manageable, especially in casual eating situations like carnivals.”
And, as Grodinsky points out, “it’s fun.”
A Historical Perspective on Pickles
The exact origins of pickles are uncertain, but most food historians trace these salted and brined vegetables back to ancient Mesopotamia around 2400 B.C.E. By the 15th century, pickles were already being transported to the New World, thanks in part to the Italian merchant Amerigo Vespucci, who was known as the “Pickle Dealer” before his days as an explorer. He supplied trans-Atlantic ships with preserved meat and vegetables, including pickles, to combat scurvy. By the 19th century, pickles were considered a status symbol among middle- and upper-class British families, displayed and served in ornate jars called pickle castors.
Then there’s the kosher dill pickle, a cucumber fermented with garlic, salt, and spices, which has a unique history of its own. “Ashkenazi Jews began arriving in the U.S. in large numbers from Central and Eastern Europe starting in the 1880s through the 1920s,” says Liz Alpern, co-founder of Brooklyn’s The Gefilteria. “We’re talking millions. It was these Jews who brought this style of pickling with them and popularized it in the United States.” Pickling vegetables was a survival strategy in countries like Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania, from where many Ashkenazi Jews emigrated, most settling in New York City. “The Jewish deli then brought all of these Ashkenazis together in an American context,” adds Alpern.
Pickles became a staple in deli culture, prominently featured on plates or wrapped in sandwich paper as a complementary part of the meal. “A pickle refreshes your taste buds,” explains Alpern, “so each bite of a pastrami sandwich, with a bite of pickle in between, can be as exciting as your first.”
Pickles in Contemporary American Culture
Today, pickles are ubiquitous from delis to diners, and festivals celebrate this cherished brined vegetable from Pittsburgh to Beverly Hills. Despite their tanginess and saltiness, pickles come in various varieties including sweet, sour, bread and butter pickles, and gherkins, or pickled baby cucumbers. Pickles across the U.S. reflect the diversity of the country itself.
In certain Texas, Oklahoma, and Mississippi movie theaters, pickles are served in wax paper bags straight from the jar, a concession food thought to have originated with German immigrants. Meanwhile, in the Mississippi Delta region, some pickle aficionados stuff their dill pickles with peppermint sticks, a tradition soul food scholar Adrian Miller suggests began “in the 1940s and ’50s as a playful pastime among children.” According to Miller, local corner stores always had large jars of pickled foods on the counter, including eggs, pigs’ feet, and large cucumbers. The cucumbers were “really cheap,” he says, “as were the peppermint sticks. They would just stick the stick into the softer part of the pickle and let it dissolve. It was all about the sweet and sour combination.”
Kool-Aid pickles, also known as “Koolickles,” are another Delta specialty, made by soaking dill pickles in brine with powdered Kool-Aid mix. These fruity and colorful pickled cucumbers, often bright red (cherry Kool-Aid) or purple (grape Kool-Aid), are an acquired taste for many but are still available at gas stations throughout the region. Over time, they’ve also spread to other parts of the U.S. “I think their initial spread occurred during the Great Migration,” says Miller. Outside the South, however, “they never really caught on anywhere else” until becoming a TikTok sensation in 2021.
This “spirit of innovation,” as Miller describes it, also led to creations like pickle popsicles and fried pickles, which gained popularity in the 1960s at the Duchess Drive-In in Atkins, Arkansas. Although the Duchess closed later that decade, fried pickles have since become a staple in American cuisine.
Pickle on a Stick: A Classic Carnival Treat
Although the exact origins of pickle on a stick as a carnival treat are unclear, it has certainly joined the ranks of other stick-bound foods like corn dogs, candied apples, and deep-fried Snickers. This trend can be traced back nearly a century to 1927, when American inventor Stanley S. Jenkins applied for a patent for a device to dip, cook, and hold items such as bananas, hot dogs, strawberries, and cheese “when impaled on sticks.”
However you slice it, pickles have a dedicated following. And for many, enjoying this juicy delight—hands-free in the summer heat—only adds to its appeal.
“Eating food on a stick is a bit goofy and nostalgic,” says Grodinsky, “but with a pickle, it’s also refreshing.”