Guilty Pleasure on the Jersey Shore

We couldn't very well make travel plans to the International Pickle Day festival in New York without visiting our friend Tom. Tom recently traded his condo digs in New York City for a house in Red Bank about an hour south on the Jersey Shore. In addition to having an incredibly well-preserved main street, with more ice cream parlors and places to buy "sliders" (mini hamburgers) than you can shake a pickle at, Red Bank is close to all the other traditional attractions, such as Asbury Park and here, the charter fishing fleet.

Red Bank is also close to Atlantic Highlands and the Mount Mitchell overlook. On a clear day, you can see the Manhattan skyline. And since you can also see the spot where the Twin Towers once stood, the site has been turned into a 9/11 memorial. Our original plan was to take a high-speed ferry across the bay into Manhattan on Sunday for the pickle festival. But not so many ferries run on Sunday afternoon, so we decided to drive. You'd be surprised how many cars are trying to get in and out of the Holland Tunnel on Sunday. That part was not so fun.

Also near Red Bank is the biggest Whole Foods I'd ever seen. I would happily trade ours just for the bulk aisle. Our friend Larry and I spent an exhausting part of the afternoon shopping for dinner: curried fish fillet with fresh tomato chutney, curry-roasted cauliflower and Indian-style zucchini fritters. Oddly enough, there was a Dairy Queen (DQ to those in the know) right next door. We were forced to make a detour for an afternoon snack that had "Jersey Shore" written all over it.

"Don't tell your wife," Larry whispered.

Don't worry, Lar. I won't.

Pickled in New York

I swear I am not making this up: There is an International Pickle Day festival and we were there this past weekend in New York City. This celebration of brine and fermentation is presented by the Lower East Side Business Improvement District and the New York Food Museum. An entire block of Orchard Street is given over to pickles, and we traveled there from the District of Columbia to take it all in. As you can see, we were not alone. In fact, more impressive than the pickles themselves were the crowds that jammed the vendor booths, vying for a taste.

This is a casual event, with lots of different pickles to sample and most for sale. In fact, Pickle Day seemed more like an advertisement for the numerous different pickle businesses located in and around New York, from big, established firms to home-based artisanal picklers such as you might see at the local farmers market.

We were astounded by how many otherwise normal looking individuals swarmed over the pickles. Would you be able to identify these people as pickle lovers if you had not caught them in the act?

There were even some two-fisted pickle eaters. No dainty nibbling here. We're talking about some aggressive pickle noshing.

At any given time, there were several dozen pickle aficionados in line waiting patiently for a free sample. Here, The Pickle Guys were giving out a choice of "new," "sour" and "hot" pickles from plastic barrels. The Pickle Guys normal work out of a store on Essex Street in New York, operating "under the rabbinical supervision of Rabbi Shmuel Fishelis." They sell a wide range of pickled vegetables, as well as numerous types of herring, white fish, lox, sauerkraut and olives. "We ship nationwide!" is their rallying cry.

The "hot" pickles were prepared very simply, with crushed red pepper.

Like this gentlemen, one of the McClure pickle clan, vendors at the Pickle Day festival take their pickling seriously. I could not help but notice the incredible whiteness the McClure pickles had maintained in the jar after brining. I was advised to try putting my cucumbers on ice for 24 hours before processing them. And for $10 a quart, you could take home the real deal.

Tasting consisted of spreads such as this one, where the pickles were cut into small pieces and displayed with toothpicks. It was no easy feat squeezing through the crowds to get at the pickle platters, and the pieces were small enough that they were not always so easy to spear with a toothpick.

Here is some of the international flavor represented at Pickle Day: kimchi. I had been hoping for lots more pickles from different countries. Most of the vendors are occupied with American-style variations on the cucumber.


We sampled many different pickles and of the lot we were most impressed with this simple offering: pickled cantaloupe. Whoever thought of it was a genius, and we could not decide how you would get the melon to a pickled state without turning it to mush. Somehow, they did.

Over the crowd noise, if you listened closely, you could hear a bit of music. These guys were playing the theme from "Zorba the Greek." Not sure why. There wasn't anything Greek going on at the time.

If sampling pickles stimulates your appetite, there were also food vendors who took advantage of the situation to make some brisk sales. Here, sausages and--what else?--sauerkraut.

Like I said, you can find just about everything pickled at the Pickle Day festival. Among the more unusual items, we tasted pickled pears and pickled garlic scapes.

Maybe you are wondering how I came to be here? Turns out the organizers had been monitoring my many recent posts on pickle making and sent me an invitation. We turned it into a road trip. Who knew that New Yorkers were so crazy for pickles?