Monthly Archives: January 2009

>When Size Matters

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Sometimes you just need a big ‘ol strappin’ pickle…and when you do, I know just the guy…www.melsolives.com

Spicy Jumbo Pickles!! I ordered a gallon jar of these a few years ago and since I’ve recently been on the hunt for a good jumbo pickle for my whole-fried-pickle experiment I revisited the website and thought I’d share the wonderful world of Mel’s Olives with y’all.

Here in New York, the grocery store shelves are mostly stocked with kosher style pickles, so I thought about asking someone down South to just send me a jar of Vlasic Polish pickles, but I checked their website and they don’t even make them anymore and all the other whole pickles, mostly sold in gallon jars, tend to be sour dills. Mel makes those too and I love a big sour pickle-I call them “concession stand pickles” because as a kid, I sucked and gnawed on one at every junior high and high school football, basketball and baseball game my mother dragged me to. I especially liked to take a few small pieces of chipped ice from my concession stand “suicide” and poke them down in the middle of my pickle. The ice would make the pickle extra sour and add a bit of crunch, since those giant pickle jars always lived on a counter top and not in a fridge. These aren’t sour pickles like you’d find in the pickle barrel at a Kosher deli, no these pickles are make-your-mouth-pucker-and-spine-shiver SOUR!

When I got my gallon jar from Mel’s Olives a couple of years ago, I too, had to keep them on display on my counter top since my squatty New York-sized refrigerator couldn’t hold it (the one I have now can’t even have a 2 liter Coke bottle standing upright in it and to think in the South most people stock up with 3 liter bottles). The pickles are obscenely and thrillingly huge, so why not keep them on display? And yeah, they taste good too. They are just like my old “concession stand pickles” but nice and spicy and I remember them also having a great garlic flavor. If you have room in your fridge next to your 3 liter of Mountain Dew, you can also just buy a gallon jar of jalapeno slices and take some regular ‘ol pickles and poke ‘em down in your jar. The longer you leave them there, the HOTTER they get.

So, Thank You Mel, for making a jumbo spicy pickle that may take me a whole day to eat. It’s time well spent. You’ll be hearing from me soon.

Twitt

>Taste My Pickle!

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…SOMEbody enjoyed the pickles I sent home for Xmas…she even knows the entire Apple Sisters commercial for McClure’s along with her older sister. I filmed them doing it on a small video camera that they got for Xmas but I don’t have it just yet…and I really should wait until they turn 18 before I let anyone see it…these girls are trouble.

Twitt

>Fried Pickles 101

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How to Make Deep Fried Pickles

I’ve been asked to post a recipe for Fried Pickles and I guess I haven’t done this yet because there are just so many ways you can do it. I don’t claim to have the “perfect” recipe or technique, it’s just one of those things that can be done a million different ways and as long as there is a pickle in there somewhere and it’s FRIED, I mean, how bad can it be?* The article above by Kathy Browning is very thorough and I think anyone can find it useful. Now, that being said, I DO have preferences which I’m happy to share.

I didn’t grow up eating fried pickles, like I’ve said before, they are found in the South but they aren’t exactly COMMON. I know that Sonic Drive-In (I LOVE Sonic and usually fully endorse their menu items) served “Pickle-O’s” when I was really small, but they stopped serving them at some point and then brought them back a few years ago and they were awful. I first had fried pickles in college at AJAX DINER in Oxford, MS. My friend Randy is the owner and he makes the BEST fried pickles in the world. He uses sliced hamburger dills and lightly batters them so when fried they come out nice and crispy but still very pickle-y and you get a whole heapin’ plate full of them. There is a place in Manhattan that comes kind of close to Randy’s recipe, the taste is almost exactly the same, but you get about a third of the amount of pickles on your plate for about twice the cost…oh, Manhattan…but I guess it’s worth it…try Rodeo Bar on Third Avenue.

There are plenty of places that serve fried pickle spears. I’ve had these at state fairs, burger joints and even at home and they are great. You get more crunchy batter and pickle per bite. While I personally prefer the sliced style, I would never turn down a spear. In New York, you can get great fried pickle spears at Soho Park. I tracked these fried spears down in high falutin’ South Beach Miami at a BBQ place, so wherever you are, check your BBQ joints first, they usually have pretty good selections of fried foods.

Kathy Browing also mentions frying a whole pickle, which I’ve never encountered or really even imagined…until NOW…so thank you Kathy, I’m on a mission. I picture taking a whole pickle, cutting it into thick slices, and re-assembling the pickle on a skewer and deep frying the whole thing. It’s kind of cheating, I know-it would appear to be a whole pickle, but would be easier to eat, and I would maybe even slip a jalapeno slice in between each pickle slice just to spice it up a little, but I’ll deep fry a whole one plain and simple just to be “scientific” in my research. You can thank me later.

The last thing I want to mention in relation to the article is that I always use flour for my batter and never the cornmeal. Cornmeal gives you a totally different texture, very grainy and gritty. Save your cornmeal for cornbread and hushpuppies.

*There are 2 exceptions-first are the Pickle-O’s at Sonic and the second are the fried pickles at the Manhattan BBQ chain Brother Jimmy’s-a bastardized version to avoid at all costs.

Twitt