SHARPSBURG, Pa. (AP) 鈥� When did we know for sure?
Was it April, when Nature Made introduced its Was it November, when Petco鈥檚 鈥淧ickle Mania鈥� promotion offered 26 different pickle-themed toys for dogs and cats? Maybe it was the December day that a food scholar was heard to utter, 鈥淓veryone can kind of see their needs met by pickles.鈥�
Or perhaps it was just a couple weeks ago, when Instagram chef itsmejuliette (no stranger to online pickle activities) posted a cheeky challenge on her 鈥渃ooking with no rules鈥� feed: 鈥渢his is your sign to surprise your neighbor with a More than 70,000 people liked her style, or at least her post.
At the intersection of health and edginess, traditionalism and hipsterism, global culture and the American stomach, the pickle in 2024 found itself caught in a mealstrom of words like 鈥渧iral鈥� and 鈥渢rending鈥� just as its food-as-fetish-object cousins 鈥� bacon and ranch dressing, notably 鈥� experienced in years past. an industry newsletter, said it outright in September: 鈥淭he pickle obsession is at an all-time high.鈥�
Tangy Pickle Doritos. Grill Mates Dill Pickle Seasoning for your steak. Portable pouches of pickles. Pickle mayonnaise, pickle hummus, pickle cookies, pickle gummies. Spicy pickle challenges. at the bar. heaven help us. Corn puffs colored and flavored like pickles and called, naturally, Pickle Balls. In Pittsburgh, the cradle of the modern American pickle (talkin鈥� to you, H.J. Heinz), a summer festival called that draws aficionados of the sour and the puckery from several states away for copious amounts of pickle beer washed down by brine, or vice versa.
As 2025 begins, two possible conclusions present themselves. First: The previously nobrow pickle has at the nucleus of the American gastro-zeitgeist for the foreseeable future. Second: This maybe has played itself out, and the pickle has (to mix a metaphor) jumped the shark.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
More of us are living the life of brine
鈥淚 think pickling in general has had a resurgence,鈥� says Emily Ruby, who would know. She is a curator and expert on the history of the Heinz company for the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, a couple miles downriver from this industrial borough where Henry J. Heinz churned out his first packaged pickles in the 19th century. Indeed, pickles are now a $3.1 billion annual market in the United States and growing consistently.
Let鈥檚 dispense with the obvious hanging question. In short: Sour nation, sour mood, Maybe just a little.
鈥淚t鈥檚 been a scary few years for a lot of people. In 2024 we needed something we could agree on. Maybe it鈥檚 pickles,鈥� says Alex Plakias, an associate professor at Hamilton College in New York who teaches the philosophy of food.
鈥淚 was surprised at how the pickle could be all things to all people,鈥� says Plakias, whose most recent book is about awkwardness. 鈥淎ll these different food identities in 2024, and no matter who you think of, pickles can be for them.鈥�
To see how that might have happened, we can look to the potent pathways of marketing and social media.
The garden-variety American cucumber pickle is crunchy and sour, with an aggressive taste of its own but a clear elasticity that accommodates other 鈥渇lavor profiles鈥� (Ghost pepper pickles! Garlic pickles! Horseradish pickles! Bread and butter chips!). They鈥檙e also absurdly low fat 鈥� the rare food trend that鈥檚 not outright bad for you 鈥� and some offer the probiotic benefits of fermentation. Key marketing points all.
From a positioning perspective, somehow the pickle exists at the crossroads of homey-slash-traditional (Mom, Lower East Side, preserves, harvests) and edgy-slash-slightly subversive (sour, intense flavors, startup pickle factories in reclaimed industrial neighborhoods).
鈥淚t鈥檚 not like I come from a long line of picklers. But I realized that a cucumber is a blank slate and you get to paint it with all kinds of different brines and spices and salts and sugars,鈥� says John Patterson, who founded Pittsburgh Pickle with his brothers out of a church kitchen a decade ago.
鈥淎 pickle is something you can rely on and count on,鈥� he says. 鈥淎 pickle is always funny, for some reason. A pickle is never nefarious or mean. It鈥檚 a peaceful, wholesome business to be in.鈥�
(Of the cucumber itself, he has this to say: 鈥淚t鈥檚 almost like God intended them to be pickled.鈥�)
The pickle is becoming an immersive experience
The pickle is also, let鈥檚 be candid, usually green and bumpy and intrinsically unattractive. That means even social-video newbies don鈥檛 need precision lighting to crank out reasonably compelling pickle content.
Credit 鈥� or blame 鈥� TikTok for some of the frenzy. Watching the meticulous chronicling of pickle-cake baking, pickle-wreath making and pickle-pizza crafting, you get the sense the social platform was made Pickle videos there regularly top 2 million viewers, and as of this week TikTok reported more than 251 million pieces of pickle content for the snacking.
Then there is the Great Surge of 2024 鈥� another social media oddity that involves someone pouring 鈥渆dible glitter鈥� (who knew?) into a jar of pickles and making 鈥済lickles鈥� 鈥� ostensibly a sexier, blingier, even Instagrammier version of pickles (again, who knew?).
Finally, COVID likely played a pivotal role. After years of rising locavore ethos, the pandemic鈥檚 forced inward focus in 2020 and 2021 led many Americans to revisit DIY approaches to food, including baking sourdough bread and, yes, pickling things. It鈥檚 what Nora Rubel, who researches food and culture, calls 鈥渁n embrace of 鈥榞randmothercore鈥� culture鈥� by, well, grandchildren. 鈥淕en Z is taking pickles as their thing. This is the new avocado toast,鈥� says Rubel, a professor of Jewish studies at the University of Rochester.
鈥淧ickles are also kind of funny. They鈥檙e just sort of goofy. You can make a lot of puns about pickles. It鈥檚 intense flavor, but there鈥檚 also a kind of silliness about them,鈥� Rubel says. (She also was heard to say:: 鈥濃�淭he sweet pickle is something that鈥檚 very deceptive and upsetting to me.鈥�)
If you鈥檙e seeing a thread emerging, it鈥檚 this 鈥� not entirely new, but worth repeating: Packaged food is no longer positioned as merely something to eat. Instead, like the most immersive restaurants, these days it often presents itself as a multimedia experience 鈥� something to be talked about and reveled in, to join likeminded communities over, to incorporate into your own personality. Lifestyle pickles, as it were.
鈥淚t symbolizes how we engage with food in daily life and with each other in 2024,鈥� says MinJi (MJ) Kim, an assistant professor of communication at Flagler College in Florida who studies how media affects people鈥檚 food choices.
鈥淪our has duality. When milk or meat or vegetables develop a sour smell, it signals spoilage. It鈥檚 a natural warning system. We equate sourness with risk,鈥� Kim says. 鈥淥n the other hand, when sourness is intentional 鈥� lemons, cider vinegar, greek yogurt 鈥� it becomes a marker of health and appeal. It shifts the perception of sourness from risk to something acceptable.鈥�
There you have it: sourness as acceptable, delicious, even worthy of obsession.
So as the popularity of pickleball 鈥� no direct relation 鈥� continues to spike, as fried pickles transcend their novelty status and become bar-food stalwarts across the land, and as someone's pet plays with one of 26 pickle holiday toys, we鈥檒l leave you with two dueling thoughts as America crunches its way into a new year.
From Rubel, this: 鈥淵ou can get pickle everything now. This is really my time.鈥�
And from Delish, the food website, this: "Can we give pickles a break in 2025? They鈥檙e tired. And we鈥檙e tired for them.鈥�
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Ted Anthony, director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation at The Associated Press, writes frequently about food.
Ted Anthony, The Associated Press
