{
 "schema": 1,
 "id": "pickles",
 "type": "dish",
 "names": {
  "name": "pickles",
  "aliases": [
   "sweet pickles",
   "dill pickles",
   "chow-chow",
   "cucumber pickle"
  ],
  "said": "'Pickle' on a Carolina plate means cucumber unless the board says chow-chow."
 },
 "region": [
  "carolinas",
  "nc",
  "sc",
  "us-south"
 ],
 "facets": {
  "course": "condiment",
  "styles": [
   "sc-mustard",
   "sc-pee-dee",
   "eastern-nc",
   "lexington"
  ]
 },
 "text": {
  "what": "Cucumbers held in brine or vinegar until they sour, sliced into rounds or spears and put on the plate beside the meat, with the sandwich, or loose in a dish on the table. Sweet pickle — cucumbers in a vinegar-and-sugar syrup with spices — is the common Carolina one; chow-chow, a chopped relish of cabbage, green tomato, onion and pepper, does the same job in a spoonful. The point of them on a barbecue plate is acid and salt against fat.",
  "story": "The pickled cucumber is old and worldwide, and the sweet Southern one is a strand of it: cucumbers marinated in vinegar, sugar and spices rather than left to sour in salt. The bread-and-butter pickle — sweeter than most, spiced with coriander — is credited to Omar and Cora Fanning, Illinois cucumber farmers who trademarked the name in 1923 after bartering pickles made from their undersized cucumbers with their grocer for staples. North Carolina's pickle industry started the same way, out of a surplus. In the mid-1920s Shikrey Baddour, a Lebanese immigrant from Goldsboro, saw farmers around Mount Olive wasting cucumber crops and began buying them, brining them in tanks and offering the brine stock to pickle firms; nobody bought it. In 1926 the Mount Olive business leader I. F. Witherington relaunched the idea as a company that would pack and sell the pickles itself, and thirty-seven shareholders put in $19,500 — a community proposition, they called it. The plant stands where the board bought an acre from the farmer J. A. Westbrook for $1,000, at the corner of Cucumber Boulevard and Vine Street. Mt. Olive now sells more than 230 million jars a year and employs more than 1,200 people in North Carolina. In 1999 the Farm Labor Organizing Committee called a boycott over the pay and conditions of cucumber pickers; it ended in 2004 when the company agreed to raise what it paid for cucumbers and growers pledged higher wages.",
  "how": "For a sweet pickle the cucumbers are cut, soaked, and cooked or steeped in vinegar with sugar, turmeric, celery seed, mustard seed and whole spices, then sealed in jars; for a sour or dill pickle they are packed in a crock or barrel with garlic, dill heads, mustard seed, leaves and salt, covered with cooled boiled water, weighted under the brine and left to ferment for weeks. Chow-chow is chopped cabbage, green tomato, onion and pepper salted overnight, drained, then simmered in vinegar with sugar, mustard seed and celery seed. On the plate they are cut in rounds or spears; on a chopped sandwich they go under the slaw or on top of it, by the house's habit.",
  "today": "Pickles are part of the standing list of fixins in both states, and the South Carolina plate — pork, rice, hash, coleslaw, sweet pickles, white bread, iced tea — carries them by default. Mt. Olive, in Wayne County, was the top-selling pickle brand in the South in an analysis of 2024 nationwide consumption by the delivery service Instacart."
 },
 "kin": [
  {
   "to": "barbecue-tray",
   "as": "the sour thing on the tray, against the fat of the meat.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "to": "barbecue-sandwich",
   "as": "laid on the meat or eaten alongside, by the house's habit.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "white-slaw",
   "as": "on the same South Carolina plate: pork, rice, hash, slaw, sweet pickles, white bread.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "hash-and-rice",
   "as": "what the pickle cuts through on a South Carolina plate.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "sc-mustard",
   "as": "part of the Midlands plate as it is usually set out.",
   "rel": "whole"
  },
  {
   "to": "fixins",
   "as": "named in the list of fixins on both states' plates.",
   "rel": "term"
  }
 ],
 "confusable_with": [
  {
   "id": "red-slaw",
   "tell": "Both are chopped, sour and red-flecked in a dish on the table. Chow-chow is a preserve put up in jars, mostly green tomato and cabbage; red slaw is made fresh from cabbage and dressed with the pit's dip."
  }
 ],
 "links": [
  {
   "label": "Mt. Olive Pickle Company — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Olive_Pickle_Company"
  },
  {
   "label": "Pickled cucumber — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickled_cucumber"
  }
 ],
 "sources": [
  "s:wp-pickled-cucumber",
  "s:wp-mt-olive-pickle-company",
  "s:wp-mount-olive-north-carolina",
  "s:wp-dukes-bar-b-que",
  "s:wp-barbecue-in-south-carolina"
 ],
 "provenance": {
  "default": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-pickled-cucumber"
  },
  "fields": {
   "text.story": {
    "tier": "cited",
    "source": "s:wp-mt-olive-pickle-company",
    "note": "bread-and-butter pickles from the pickled cucumber article; the Mount Olive figures, the boycott and the $19,500 from the company's article"
   },
   "text.today": {
    "tier": "cited",
    "source": "s:wp-mt-olive-pickle-company",
    "note": "the Instacart analysis of 2024 consumption as the article reports it; the South Carolina plate from the barbecue in South Carolina article"
   },
   "recipes": {
    "tier": "cited",
    "source": "s:book-aunt-carolines-dixieland-recipes",
    "note": "each recipe carries its own source, licence and page"
   }
  }
 },
 "recipes": [
  {
   "title": "Cucumber Pickle",
   "source": "s:book-aunt-carolines-dixieland-recipes",
   "license": "Public domain",
   "year": 1922,
   "url": "https://archive.org/details/cu31924087257881",
   "author": "Emma and William McKinney",
   "book": "Aunt Caroline's Dixieland Recipes",
   "text": "Take enough cucumbers to fill a two-gallon jar. Cut into lengthwise pieces and soak until fresh. Cover with equal parts of water and vinegar, and boil an hour and ten minutes. Then take them out and boil one and one-half hours in one gallon of fresh vinegar, two pounds of sugar, one tablespoonful of celery seed, one tablespoonful of tumeric, one teaspoonful each of cloves, mace and ginger, one tablespoonful of black pepper, and one of horse radish. When cold add one-half teaspoonful of cayenne pepper.",
   "page": 89,
   "note": "A sweet pickle in the Southern proportion — two pounds of sugar to a gallon of vinegar. 'Tumeric' is the book's spelling."
  },
  {
   "title": "Tar Heel Chow Chow",
   "source": "s:book-aunt-carolines-dixieland-recipes",
   "license": "Public domain",
   "year": 1922,
   "url": "https://archive.org/details/cu31924087257881",
   "author": "Emma and William McKinney",
   "book": "Aunt Caroline's Dixieland Recipes",
   "text": "Chop one head of cabbage, one gallon of green tomatoes, and one quart of onions. Add one-half cup of salt, put in a bag and let it drain for twenty-four hours.\n\nThen put in kettle and add about two pounds of brown sugar, one cup of white mustard seed, and one-half cup of celery seed. Cover with good apple vinegar and cook until done, about three or four hours. To the above add one or two pods of chopped red pepper.",
   "page": 83,
   "note": "North Carolina's relish under North Carolina's nickname, printed in Chicago in 1922.",
   "region": "North Carolina"
  },
  {
   "title": "Aunt Caroline's Own Pickle",
   "source": "s:book-aunt-carolines-dixieland-recipes",
   "license": "Public domain",
   "year": 1922,
   "url": "https://archive.org/details/cu31924087257881",
   "author": "Emma and William McKinney",
   "book": "Aunt Caroline's Dixieland Recipes",
   "text": "Chop fine one-half gallon of green tomatoes, one pint of onions, one pint of green and red peppers with seeds taken out, and one gallon of cabbage. Mix well and sprinkle two tablespoonsful of salt over it and let stand all night. Add three quarts of vinegar, two pounds of sugar, three teaspoonsful of celery seed, three of mustard seed two of spice, and one of cloves. Let simmer two hours.",
   "page": 83,
   "note": "The punctuation is the book's."
  },
  {
   "title": "To Pickle Cucumbers",
   "source": "s:book-virginia-house-wife",
   "license": "Public domain",
   "year": 1824,
   "url": "https://archive.org/details/virginiahousewi00rand",
   "author": "Mrs. Mary Randolph",
   "book": "The Virginia House-Wife",
   "text": "Gather them full grown, but quite young — take off the green rind, and slice them tolerably thick; put a layer in a deep dish, strew over it some chopped onion and salt; do this until they are all in; sprinkle salt on the top, let them stand six hours, put them in a colander — when all the liquor has run off, put them in a pot, strew a little cayenne pepper over each layer, and cover them with strong cold vinegar; when the pot is full, pour on some sweet oil, and tie it up close; at the end of a fortnight, pour off the first vinegar, and put on fresh.",
   "page": "164–165",
   "note": "No sugar in it: a plain sour pickle of 1824, peeled and sliced rather than left whole."
  },
  {
   "title": "Cucumbers",
   "source": "s:book-dixie-cookery",
   "license": "Public domain",
   "year": 1867,
   "url": "https://archive.org/details/dixiecookeryorho00barr",
   "author": "Mrs. Barringer, of North Carolina",
   "book": "Dixie Cookery",
   "text": "Make a strong salt and water, and let the cucumbers lie in it for two weeks. Then soak all night in fresh water. The next day put them into a bright brass kettle, with a little alum, and water enough to cover them. Put grape-leaves on top, and a plate to keep in the steam. Simmer gently for a half a day. Let them get entirely cold, and then put them into fresh alum water, over the fire, and continue doing this, until they are quite fresh. Then, if they are a fine green, put them into a jar, and boil some vinegar and spices in a porcelain kettle, and pour over them. Have plenty of vinegar to cover the pickles, and cork them up tightly.",
   "page": 42,
   "note": "A North Carolina receipt of 1867. The alum and the brass kettle were used to hold the colour; neither is used now.",
   "region": "North Carolina"
  }
 ],
 "images": [],
 "x_commons_files": [],
 "confidence": "high",
 "needs_verification": false,
 "updated": "2026-09-16",
 "blurb": "Cucumbers held in brine or vinegar until they sour, sliced into rounds or spears and put on the plate beside the meat, with the sandwich, or loose in a dish on the table.",
 "region_terms": [
  {
   "key": "carolinas",
   "name": "The Carolinas",
   "state": null,
   "note": "both states together; use when a node belongs to the whole tradition"
  },
  {
   "key": "nc",
   "name": "North Carolina",
   "state": "NC"
  },
  {
   "key": "sc",
   "name": "South Carolina",
   "state": "SC"
  },
  {
   "key": "us-south",
   "name": "The American South",
   "state": null,
   "note": "for nodes shared with the wider region"
  }
 ],
 "kin_out": [
  {
   "to": "barbecue-tray",
   "type": "dish",
   "name": "barbecue tray",
   "as": "the sour thing on the tray, against the fat of the meat.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "to": "barbecue-sandwich",
   "type": "dish",
   "name": "barbecue sandwich",
   "as": "laid on the meat or eaten alongside, by the house's habit.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "white-slaw",
   "type": "dish",
   "name": "white slaw",
   "as": "on the same South Carolina plate: pork, rice, hash, slaw, sweet pickles, white bread.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "hash-and-rice",
   "type": "dish",
   "name": "hash and rice",
   "as": "what the pickle cuts through on a South Carolina plate.",
   "rel": "kin"
  },
  {
   "to": "sc-mustard",
   "type": "style",
   "name": "South Carolina mustard barbecue",
   "as": "part of the Midlands plate as it is usually set out.",
   "rel": "whole"
  },
  {
   "to": "fixins",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "fixins",
   "as": "named in the list of fixins on both states' plates.",
   "rel": "term"
  }
 ],
 "source_list": [
  {
   "id": "s:wp-pickled-cucumber",
   "kind": "wikipedia",
   "title": "Pickled cucumber — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickled_cucumber",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-mt-olive-pickle-company",
   "kind": "wikipedia",
   "title": "Mt. Olive Pickle Company — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Olive_Pickle_Company",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-mount-olive-north-carolina",
   "kind": "wikipedia",
   "title": "Mount Olive, North Carolina — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Olive,_North_Carolina",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-dukes-bar-b-que",
   "kind": "wikipedia",
   "title": "Dukes Bar-B-Que — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dukes_Bar-B-Que",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
   "note": "revision 1373146410"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-barbecue-in-south-carolina",
   "kind": "wikipedia",
   "title": "Barbecue in South Carolina — Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbecue_in_South_Carolina",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  }
 ],
 "tiers": {
  "text.what": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-pickled-cucumber"
  },
  "text.story": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-mt-olive-pickle-company",
   "note": "bread-and-butter pickles from the pickled cucumber article; the Mount Olive figures, the boycott and the $19,500 from the company's article"
  },
  "text.how": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-pickled-cucumber"
  },
  "text.today": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-mt-olive-pickle-company",
   "note": "the Instacart analysis of 2024 consumption as the article reports it; the South Carolina plate from the barbecue in South Carolina article"
  }
 },
 "primary_image": null,
 "tag_facts": [],
 "recognition_facts": [],
 "acclaim": 0,
 "kin_in": []
}