05.08.06

Travis Pickle

Posted in Brooklyn, Fruits and Veggies, Pickles at 4:49 am by Administrator

Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong decade.  I would have loved to have been around during the 20s and 30s.  It seems like that lifestyle would have been right up my alley.  I’ve spent my last few years trying to capture a little of that old timey feeling, working the streets as a yellow cabbie and the sidewalk as a pickle man.  My jobs are very unusual for a twenty-something Jew these days, but they would have been quite common for my demographic during that straw hat era. 

I’ve heard that you used to be able to walk down the street in New York and not miss one pitch of the Yankee game, because every window was open (I admit I would not have been happy without air conditioning) and everyone was listening on the radio.  I like using old fashioned sayings like “What the blazes” and “Get on the trolley.”  I would have loved to hang out at any speakeasy, but I’ve never even considered going to The Crowbar or PM or Lotus.  And people used to eat pickles because they were delicious and plentiful, not because they were nostalgic or kitschy. 

This weekend, I witnessed something I can describe only as heartening.  A brand new Brooklyn pickle company, Wheelhouse Pickles, was born.  They threw a launch party at Freddy’s Back Room, an old speakeasy that is slated to be torn down to make way for Ratner’s Nets Stadium.  One of my fares gave me flyer with a picture of smiling, buck-toothed pickle strapped to a rocket being launching skyward.  The rumour was that they were going to actually launch an actual pickle via fireworks.  Lured by promises of free beer, free gin, free music, and free pickles, I couldn’t resist.  “COME FOR THE PICKLES, STAY FOR THE PICKLES,” the flyer boasted.  Right up my alley.

 

When I arrived at Freddy’s I was astonished to find a full fledged party in progress.  The back room was jam-packed, the bar up front was overloaded, and people were spilling out into the streets.  Everyone was smiling, alcohol was flowing, and dancing was breaking out.  A live jug band, The Flanks, was playing some great old-timey music with a stand-up bass, a fiddle, a guitar, a banjo, a harmonica, and, I think I heard at one point, a kazoo.

 

The star of the party, however, was the free pickles.  Trays of sliced pickles made the rounds through the sweaty room, and the revelers enthusiastically stabbed at the samples with tooth picks.  I heard one overwhelmed man holding an empty tray high above his head as he tried to make his way back to the kitchen say to no one in particular, “The kids love the pickled beets.” 

(The mob scene at a pickle tray)

But that was not all they loved.  The pickled okra was a particular success, along with the pickled pears, pickled wax beans, and bread and butter pickled cucumbers.  Every kind of pickle I tried had a nice blend of sweetness and crunch along with a spicy kick on the aftertaste.  The sour pickles didn’t compare with the traditional lower east side variety, but they were still tasty.    

One of the people passing around the pickle hors d’oeuvres shouted me a brief story about the company being born out of the necessity to preserve the pears near the owner’s grandmother’s country house upstate lest they rot on the topsoil.  And I must say, the pickles tasted very country.  Bread and butter pickles are not New York pickles.  When I worked at Guss Pickles on the lower east side and people asked me for sweet pickles, I’d tell them to go to Georgia.

Well, now I guess they can just order from Wheelhouse Pickles (not for another week).  As for me, I spent a good deal of time at the merch table of my dreams:

 

And I ended up taking home a jar of pickled cucumbers in champagne vinegar which I’ve already polished off:

 

(as a former pickle man who takes pride in his craft, it is nice to see that Wheelhouse packs their jars full and tight) 

I was smiling from ear to ear the entire time I was at the launch party.  It truly made my heart swell to see so many people thoroughly enjoying pickles without a hint of irony in their eyes.  Everyone was there and everyone was happy because everyone likes pickles.  It was a great time, and it made me feel a little more at home in this century.

(You can’t get more up my alley than a Taxi Driver/ Pickle reference)

Wheelhouse Pickles, Only online at http://www.wheelhousepickles.com

Freddy’s Back Room, Dean Street and 6th Avenue, Downtown Brooklyn 

Guss Pickles, Orchard St btwn Broome and Grand, Lower East Side, Manhattan

Read an article I wrote about pickles on Ludlow Street a century ago in L Magazine in the “Published Food Writing” section of the Famous Fat Dave’s Five Borough Eating Tour website

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