Pickles Are (Still) Having a Moment
Photographer:Marek walica
The pickle trend – so big last summer – is still on the upswing. Evidence? 1) Pickle sandwiches. 2) Pickle chips.
Let’s take them one at a time …
First, the pickle sandwich: A restaurant in Haddon Township, New Jersey, called Elsie’s is now serving sandwiches using pickles where you’d normally find the bread.
Elsie’s Signature Pickle Sandwich (a.k.a. “The Real Dill”) is “a great bread-free alternative served on an Elsie’s Kosher Pickle,” according to the eatery’s menu.
You can order it with roast beef, turkey, corned beef, ham and/or salami, top it with lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese – even crushed potato chips, among other options, including condiments like wasabi mayo and Sriracha mayo.
Another interesting Elsie’s menu item: cucumber roll-ups, which are mini pickle wraps with the sandwich fillings inside. They kind of look like sushi and are served with chopsticks.
At Elsie’s, it’s all pickles where the bread would be. “There is no bread in the house,” Elsie’s co-owner Katherine Cohen told Philadelphia magazine.
“You know, you think about every sandwich you ever had, and it always comes with a pickle,” co-owner Chad Jordan said in a Thrillist video. “Well, why not have a sandwich on a pickle?”
Why not? The restaurant opened about two months ago, and last week went viral, thanks to the aforementioned video as well as coverage online and on TV. At this point, Cohen says the shop is having difficulty keeping up with demand and is considering expanding, franchising or licensing its catchy concept.
All options (along with pickles) are on the table.
Also soon to be on the table is pickle-trend proof No. 2: Pickle chips.
Vlasic is expanding its line of pickle products with two new items: Vlasic Pickle Chips and single-serve pickle slices.
Currently in development, the products do not yet have a confirmed release date, but as for the pickle chips, one thing is known: They’ll be made from pickles rather than potatoes with pickle flavoring, like the recently re-released Lay’s Dill Pickle Flavored Potato Chips.
"Pickles themselves are a great snack, essentially no calories or carbs," Tom McGough, co-chief operating officer of Vlasic parent company Conagra Brands, told investors earlier this month, USA Today reports. "But eating pickles out of a conventional jar is inconvenient and messy."
Eating them on a sandwich or out of a bag, apparently, not so much.
Photo: iStock
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