\u201cIt\u2019s a matter of communication, branding,\u201d van Ravestein posited.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou tell the story,\u201d Mulder added. \u201cThe food is an interface that is also your legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Van Ravestein munched on a half-sour and recalled an article, from 1890, that likened pickles to alcohol or coffee: \u201cSo kids couldn\u2019t eat them, because it gives you a kick.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russ Federman mentioned a contemporary listicle of ten \u201csuperfoods,\u201d most of which were sold at her store: \u201cIt\u2019s herring, sardines, salmon, sauerkraut, liver\u2014caviar was on the list!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what we had yesterday evening?\u201d Mulder asked, as she sipped a shrub (pickled-beet juice and vinegar, popular with the marathon-runner set). \u201cA vermouth with pickle juice.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dutch visitors headed south to Sweet Pickle Books, on Orchard Street, a hip used bookstore with a pickle side hustle that was opened, in 2020, by a millennial named Leigh Altshuler, who previously served as marketing director for the Strand. Shoved in a corner was an adult-size pickle costume by the designer who made Katy Perry\u2019s Super Bowl halftime-show sharks.<\/p>\n
Before opening her store, Altshuler had prepared three hundred and sixty jars of pickles to sell, and eventually started giving them away to people who donated books. \u201cI was, like, \u2018This for sure will last me forever. It\u2019ll be a gimmick,\u2019\u00a0\u201d she told the Dutch duo. A year later, her shop was bursting at the seams, and she kept selling out of pickles. \u201cPeople had been putting it on TikTok,\u201d she said. Altshuler had to outsource pickle production upstate, and began cranking out pickle merch. \u201cAll of a sudden, Harry Styles was wearing it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was a whole drama.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mulder and van Ravestein mentioned the frenzy surrounding the Heinz pickle pin, a coveted souvenir at the 1939 New York World\u2019s Fair.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are obsessed with pickles!\u201d Altshuler said. \u201cPeople come in and say, \u2018Oh, look at my pickle tattoo,\u2019 or, \u2018My dog\u2019s name is Pickle.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Holland, a lot of young people, they\u2019ve started fermenting at home,\u201d Mulder added.<\/p>\n
The Sweet Pickle Books building\u2014near where \u201cLower East Side cool girlies\u201d (per Altshuler) had dumpster-dived for Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet\u2019s old \u201cMarty Supreme\u201d costumes\u2014has been in its landlady\u2019s family for a century and a half. Altshuler said, \u201cHer grandfather sold melons from a pushcart outside.\u201d\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s a matter of communication, branding,\u201d van Ravestein posited. \u201cYou tell the story,\u201d Mulder added. \u201cThe food is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[97134,1472,9,11,10,112165,11004],"class_list":["post-294258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-_talk-of-the-town","tag-magazine","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-rebrand-dept","tag-splitscreenimageleftinset"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}