For pickle lovers on both coasts

I just posted about The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck that travels in New York. Well, owner of the truck Doug Quint shops for unusual ice cream toppings. In his blog he mentions that he traveled to The Pickle Guys in NY to purchase some pickles to go along with his ice cream.

I am from California so I am unable to taste the wonder that seems to be The Big Gay Ice Cream truck and sadly enough, I will not be able to visit The Pickle Guys. However, I just visited their website and apparently they ship their pickles nation wide.



I loooove pickles and have since childhood so this sounds like such a treat!

According to The Pickle Guys website they make barrel cured pickles. The pickles are made by letting them sit in salt brine with garlic, spices, and no preservatives. Storing them in barrels, from a day up to six months, the pickles cure as they sit.

As I perused the Pickle Guys website I found a brief history of pickles which I found interesting. Here's what the PGs had to say.



Pickles have a very long history and are found across all cultures. The earliest known examples are cucumbers that are known to have been pickled some time around 2030 BC in Mesopotamia, when inhabitants from northern India brought cucumber seeds to the Tigris valley.

Pickles are mentioned at least twice in the Bible (Numbers 11:5 and Isaiah 1:8), were known to the ancient Egyptians (Cleopatra attributed some of her beauty to pickles), and Aristotle praised the healing effects of pickled cucumbers. The Romans imported all sorts of foods from the countries they conquered, pickling them for the journey in vinegar, oil, brine and sometimes honey. Garum or Liquamen, a fermented, salted fish-based condiment was a dietary staple and has been found as far north as the Antonine Wall.

Notable pickle-lovers from history include: Emperors Julius Caesar and Tiberius, King John and Queen Elizabeth I of England, Samuel Pepys, Amerigo Vespucci, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Napoleon Bonaparte.

The English word 'pickle' derives from the Middle English pikel, first recorded around 1400 and meaning 'a spicy sauce or gravy served with meat or fowl'. This is different to, but obviously related to the Middle Dutch source, pekel, meaning a solution, such as spiced brine, for preserving and flavoring food.

"Pickled cucumbers achieved great popularity in many parts of Europe and the Middle East, but arguably nowhere more than among Eastern European Jews, who ate them with black bread and later potatoes as the bulk of their diet," says Rabbi Gil Marks, author of Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World (Wiley Publishing, 2004).

To the Ashkenazi ancestors, pickles were no trifling matter, but rather a fundamental part of their diet, in fact pickles not only contributed valuable nutrition in places where fresh produce was unavailable during the fall and winter but also added kick to an essentially bland diet.
Sephardic Jews have their own pickle preferences.

"Pickles are equally important in Middle Eastern culture," says Jennifer Felicia Abadi, author of A Fistful of Lentils: Syrian-Jewish Recipes From Grandma Fritzie's Kitchen (The Harvard Common Press, 2002). Sephardic Jews also eat pickled cucumbers, but they're different from Ashkenazi dills. They're tiny, like gherkins, yet salty, not sweet.

The Jewish love of pickles dates to the ancient world. Throughout recorded history, both the elite and impoverished masses relied on pickles, there was a wide variety of pickled produce was standard fare in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. While wandering in the wilderness, the Israelites lamented the loss of the cucumbers they enjoyed in Egypt.

Until recently, sauerkraut (pickled fermented cabbage) was a mainstay throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Over the centuries, Ashkenazi Jews filled wooden barrels or ceramic crocks with cabbage, cucumbers or beets, leaving them in root cellars to ferment in salt brine seasoned with spices.

In recent decades, Jews have rarely frequented the Lower East Side, and the Pickle Guys along with a couple of pickle stores remain to carry out its tradition as New York City’s pickle capital. To the Jewish people, there's nothing like the snap of a pickle from home, wherever home might be. And this is what we have to offer at the Pickle Guys: exquisite home made old fashioned pickles.

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For those of us that live in California and do not want to order pickles through the mail, there are other options. Sure you could always go to your local grocery store and pick up some of your faves. But allow me to make a recommendation.


I recommend Kosher pickles from Canter's Restaurant. There is a Canter's in Las Vegas but the Los Angles Canters is located 429 N. Fairfax Ave.

The L.A. Canter's was built in 1931. So, the eatery has a long history. To learn more you can visit their website here.



When you visit Canter's you are presented with free Kosher dill pickles. If you want more you can ask and they'll keep em' comin'!

The last time I went I bought some to take home!

If anyone out there has other recommendations, let me know!