Last year, I spent several evenings at a carnival in Woodbury Heights, New Jersey, with my dad and nephews. As we weighed our options between cheese fries and funnel cake, my attention was drawn by an intriguing call: “Get your pickle on a stick! Pickle on a stick for just three dollars!” The growing line for this carnival delight fascinated me. It’s a pickle. On a stick.
I wondered, what’s the big deal?
“Pickle sticks beat ice cream on really hot days,” explains Peggy Grodinsky, a writer and editor for Maine’s Portland Press Herald. Grodinsky explored pickle sticks in summer 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 deceivingly heavy with milk, cream, and often eggs. Many pickles are made with vinegar, so they feel much lighter—even invigorating—when you’re eating them.”
Pickles are clearly having a moment, with pickling workshops offered from San Francisco to Billings, Montana, and specialty pickle stores popping up in places like Midland, Texas, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. For many, the allure of cucumbers pickled in brine or vinegar is undeniable. They’re crunchy, refreshing, and packed with sodium, which can be hydrating on a scorching summer day. Yet, they can be messy. “There’s a practical argument for pickles on sticks,” says Rod Phillips, a food and wine historian at Carleton University in Ottawa. “You avoid getting your fingers soaked in brine or juice, and it makes them easier to handle, especially at casual eating events like carnivals.”
And, as Grodinsky points out, “it’s fun.”
A Historical Look at Pickles
The precise 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 being transported to the New World, partly thanks to the Italian merchant Amerigo Vespucci, known as the “Pickle Dealer” before his days as an explorer. He supplied trans-Atlantic ships with preserved meats and vegetables, including pickles, to combat scurvy. By the 19th century, pickles had become a status symbol among middle- and upper-class British families, displayed and served in ornate jars known as pickle castors.
Then there’s the kosher dill pickle, a cucumber fermented with garlic, salt, and spices, which has its own unique history. “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. “Millions came. It was these Jews who brought this style of pickling and popularized it in the United States.” Pickling vegetables was a survival strategy in countries like Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania, where many Ashkenazi Jews originated, most settling in New York City. “The Jewish deli then brought all of these Ashkenazis together in an American context,” adds Alpern.
Pickles became integral to deli culture, prominently served on plates or wrapped in sandwich paper as part of the meal. “A pickle cleanses your palate,” explains Alpern, “so each bite of a pastrami sandwich, with a pickle in between, can be as refreshing as your first.”
Pickles in Modern American Culture
Today, pickles are ubiquitous from delis to diners, and festivals celebrate this beloved brined vegetable from Pittsburgh to Beverly Hills. Despite their tanginess and saltiness, pickles come in various forms including sweet, sour, bread and butter pickles, and gherkins (pickled baby cucumbers). Pickle varieties 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 enthusiasts stuff their dill pickles with peppermint sticks, a tradition that 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. “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 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
While the exact origins of the pickle on a stick as a carnival treat remain 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 devoted 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 whimsical and nostalgic,” says Grodinsky, “but with a pickle, it’s also refreshing.”