Speaker 1: Guess what mango? What's that? Well, all right, pop quiz
Speaker 1: for you. Do you know which fast food chain uses
Speaker 1: the phrase your way right away? Yeah? Of course Burger King?
Speaker 1: You got it? All right? Well, I want to tell
Speaker 1: you about a little group of pranksters there. There were
Speaker 1: some writers in Japan and they've been testing the limits
Speaker 1: of that catch phrase since back in two thousand twelve.
Speaker 1: So every few years they walk into a Burger King
Speaker 1: and they order something outrageous and it's it's different every year,
Speaker 1: Like they ordered a cheese burger one year with a
Speaker 1: thousand slices of cheese, and they paid for whatever that cost.
Speaker 1: But you know, of course, the photos of this are
Speaker 1: ridiculous and it just looks like this tiny mountain of
Speaker 1: cheese slices piled about a foot in the air. I
Speaker 1: don't know how they possibly ate this, but that's what
Speaker 1: they ordered. I mean, that was cheese. Feels like it's
Speaker 1: just like taunting anyone with lactose intolerance, right, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: a nightmare. But the writers didn't stop there, so two
Speaker 1: years ago they decided to repeat the feat, but this
Speaker 1: time with pickles. So I already like where this is going.
Speaker 1: How many pickles can you stack on a burger, alright,
Speaker 1: So the writer's about nine thousand yen or about eighty
Speaker 1: dollars to max the burger out with pickles, and the
Speaker 1: whopper artist at Burger King managed to get about seven
Speaker 1: hundred pickles piled onto the patty and the barn. But
Speaker 1: then they had to package this thing, so the staff
Speaker 1: actually had to tape all these whopper wrappers together to
Speaker 1: fit the burger into some packaging, you know, so the
Speaker 1: writers could take it home. And then of course the
Speaker 1: writers actually just went to town on this thing. So
Speaker 1: did they actually finish the burger? Oh? Nowhere close and
Speaker 1: had a gross amount of pickles, even if you like pickles.
Speaker 1: But the Japanese Burger King's got some good press out
Speaker 1: of it, and those writers will probably never have to
Speaker 1: worry about scurvy. So that's the good news. And that's
Speaker 1: just the first of our nine stories about pickles today.
Speaker 1: So let's dive in, y Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome
Speaker 1: the part time genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always
Speaker 1: I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesh Ticketer and
Speaker 1: sitting on the other side of the soundproof glass wearing
Speaker 1: a shirt that says let's make a dill. That's our
Speaker 1: producer and pickle enthusiasts, Tristan the Pickleman McNeil. So do
Speaker 1: you think he knew rooting a show on pickles today
Speaker 1: or was it just like a coincidence that he wore
Speaker 1: that shirt. I feel like I've seen him like wear
Speaker 1: a dozen pickle shirts to work now. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know how many pickle shirts this guy has. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go with coincidence, all right, Mango. So I kicked
Speaker 1: this off with a pickle prank that I think any
Speaker 1: of us can actually do at Burger King, So that
Speaker 1: that is assuming they have seven d pickles on hand.
Speaker 1: But anyway, where do you want to start off with
Speaker 1: your first fact? So I'm gonna start with one that
Speaker 1: I'm kind of obsessed with, even though I've never actually
Speaker 1: tried them, and that's kool Aid pickles, which I guess
Speaker 1: originated in the Mississippi Delta. They're basically just store bought
Speaker 1: pickles that you get in a jar and then you
Speaker 1: dump out the pickle juice and replace it with Koolaid
Speaker 1: and sometimes extra sugar, and then the pickles just absorbed
Speaker 1: that kool Aid flavor and you get a sweet and
Speaker 1: sour taste that people seem to go crazy for. Obviously,
Speaker 1: this sounds gross to me because, like, while I could
Speaker 1: see the worth and needing a pickle and then like
Speaker 1: downing it with a swig of kool Aid, I don't
Speaker 1: know why you'd intentionally command those flavors. You know something
Speaker 1: I saw recently that grosses me out in the same
Speaker 1: way as these Greek salad pizzas when people put lettuce
Speaker 1: on their pizzas. I just there's certain things. I don't
Speaker 1: know why you combine the experiences. I know. I mean,
Speaker 1: like there's no reason for a salad pie right like
Speaker 1: that makes But apparently there are a few thoughts on
Speaker 1: where these kool Aid pickles actually originated. Some people have
Speaker 1: referenced how kool aid used to be common at picnics
Speaker 1: and barbecues in the South. It's kind of a cultural
Speaker 1: drink where pickles were also served, and people think that's
Speaker 1: where it came from. There's also this disgusting theory. I
Speaker 1: saw how kids used to use kool Aid powder and
Speaker 1: pickles like fun dip, and they just take a dill
Speaker 1: pickle and dip it all up in that powder and
Speaker 1: then and somehow stores took notice and decided to combine
Speaker 1: the flavors. But yeah, today you can supposedly walk into
Speaker 1: like gas stations and delis all across the Delta and
Speaker 1: buy kool Aid pickles, singles, and every flavor, so you
Speaker 1: can get them in the red flavor, blue flavor, purple flavor.
Speaker 1: But my favorite thing about them is the names. So
Speaker 1: some places call them coolickles or um piculas, which is
Speaker 1: a strange name. They're also called candy dills and candy pickles.
Speaker 1: And when Walmart started selling a fruit punch flavor did
Speaker 1: actually sell them in jars for two dollars a pop.
Speaker 1: They called them tropicals, which is I guess the best name. Yeah. Actually,
Speaker 1: there's some places where people substitute the traditional kool Aid
Speaker 1: with snow cone syrup, so those are called snow coo pickles.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good. Actually, I think that one might be
Speaker 1: my favorite. So I'm curious to like, how does kool
Speaker 1: Aid feel about kool Aid pickles? Have you have you
Speaker 1: read anything about this? Yeah, if you look online, it
Speaker 1: almost seems like koolid is perplexed by the phenomenon. But
Speaker 1: they do have a recipe for cherry flavored pickles on
Speaker 1: their site with a very tepid endorsement. They claim it's
Speaker 1: quote worth a try, and honestly, the more I talk
Speaker 1: about them, I I do think they're worth a try,
Speaker 1: I guess. So we should definitely try to get our
Speaker 1: hands on some, and some other people should try them.
Speaker 1: If I don't, we'll see, all right. Well, speaking of
Speaker 1: mysterious pickle origins, I found this great Alice Obscure story
Speaker 1: about a jar of pickles and de Pair Missouri. Now
Speaker 1: apparently there's this jar that's been left on the side
Speaker 1: of a highway ramp and it's become this cult obsession.
Speaker 1: So this woman, Barbstein noticed them sitting there back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve, and for some reason, it just
Speaker 1: kind of made her happy looking at them every day.
Speaker 1: So she sets up this Facebook group called Team Pickle,
Speaker 1: you know, to make the pickles famous. As she tells
Speaker 1: Atlas Obscure a quote every day for six years, I
Speaker 1: brushed my teeth, I got in my car, and I
Speaker 1: looked for pickles. Seasons changed, the sun beat down, the
Speaker 1: snow piled up, construction and protest actions shut down the highway,
Speaker 1: and the pickles remained like there was some aura around it,
Speaker 1: just protecting it. I like that, I do these like
Speaker 1: holy pickles. So this kind of became a phenomenon, I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The Facebook group started with like people or so, and
Speaker 1: then people started writing jokes and these elaborate poems in
Speaker 1: honor of the pickles, and people started making pilgrimages there
Speaker 1: just to see the pickle jar, and the following grew
Speaker 1: and grew, and sometimes it would get stolen or knocked
Speaker 1: off the ledge, and then another jar of pickles would appear.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it was the super full jar of pickles or
Speaker 1: fresh new pickles, and sometimes it's homemade pickles placed in
Speaker 1: tupper ware. And of course their theories about why the
Speaker 1: pickles were there in the first place. Some people think
Speaker 1: it was just this construction worker who was drinking pickle
Speaker 1: juice to avoid cramps and then left it there accidentally.
Speaker 1: But Steen is a romantic and she's got a different story,
Speaker 1: and it actually cracks me up to hear what she
Speaker 1: thinks about this. So she believes, quote, maybe it's somebody
Speaker 1: with a forbidden love and they put the pickles up
Speaker 1: there at the exit to say hey, I'm thinking of you.
Speaker 1: That's amazing and also very very romantic, So I was
Speaker 1: looking to have Blastic pickles. And do you know why
Speaker 1: Blastic has a stork for a mascot. No, I know.
Speaker 1: It's actually playing off the idea that pregnant women crave pickles,
Speaker 1: which makes sense when you think about it. I found
Speaker 1: these old commercials of that stork doing a Groucho Marks
Speaker 1: voice and sticking a pickle out of its mouth like
Speaker 1: a cigar, and you know, I just assumed they picked
Speaker 1: a memorable mascot because it's funny looking and cute and whatever.
Speaker 1: But apparently there was actually a news hook behind picking
Speaker 1: a stork. In the nineties seventies, the US had this
Speaker 1: drop in birth rates, and the joke was that since
Speaker 1: storks were out of work from delivering babies, they just
Speaker 1: picked up like these part time jobs, delivering pickles to
Speaker 1: pregnant women. And in fact, the company's slogan at the
Speaker 1: time was the pickle pregnant women crave, and all the
Speaker 1: sadvertising actually worked. They used to be tied with Hines
Speaker 1: for ten percent of the pickle market, and the ads
Speaker 1: helped them pull ahead and double their share. But that
Speaker 1: isn't even the weirdest bit of marketing I saw from Glastic.
Speaker 1: I also found this book of pickle jokes they put out.
Speaker 1: It's called A hundred one Pickle Jokes Guaranteed to pick
Speaker 1: well your funny bone. Gosh, just in that line, I'm
Speaker 1: sure they're just great. Are the jokes any good? There's
Speaker 1: no way they're any good. Right, Well, I'm gonna run
Speaker 1: and buy you. So here's one from the cover. Who's
Speaker 1: the toughest pickle in Dodge City? Marshall Dill? What and
Speaker 1: What's green? And Sores through the Air Jonathan Livingston pickle.
Speaker 1: These are the jokes that they pick for the cover, Like,
Speaker 1: these are the jokes that are supposed to lure you
Speaker 1: into the book. These are the best ones they have.
Speaker 1: But actually that kind of makes me want to read
Speaker 1: the best. You know how much I love horrible, horrible jokes.
Speaker 1: It was that book of Monster just could not stop
Speaker 1: laughing because they were so horrible. We might have to
Speaker 1: do a whole episode on terrible jokes from joke books.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, here's the fact about pickles that I
Speaker 1: thought was interesting. So you know Charles Atlas, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's not a bodybuilder from forever ago with all those
Speaker 1: ads and like boy Scott Magazines and stuff about getting
Speaker 1: strong and not letting people kick sand in your face. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, you should not let people kick sand in
Speaker 1: the face. That's a good, good rule. So I came
Speaker 1: across his recommended diet on Jason Cotkey site, and it's
Speaker 1: surprisingly ahead of its time in some way. So, so
Speaker 1: here are some of the rules. That says no refined sugar,
Speaker 1: no bleach flour, no white rice, no fatty meats, no
Speaker 1: soft drinks, no coffee or tea, no staying up past midnight. Ever,
Speaker 1: but it also recommends no mustard, no vinegar, and definitely
Speaker 1: no pickles. That's funny. I feel like I finally know
Speaker 1: why I don't have that Charles Atlas physique. It's just
Speaker 1: all these pickles. I eat all those pickles. Just keep
Speaker 1: eating pickles, otherwise you'd be totally ripped. Well, actually, Cocky
Speaker 1: makes a joke about this list, and he writes reading
Speaker 1: that chapter was like having Charles Atlas asked me to
Speaker 1: list all my favorite things in the world, then grab
Speaker 1: the list from my hands, crumple it up, and toss
Speaker 1: it in my face. Although the strangest part he mentions
Speaker 1: is that Charles Atlas does make an exception for candy
Speaker 1: in the chapter. So what he says is, if you
Speaker 1: must eat candy, be sure it is of the very
Speaker 1: highest quality. I don't really know what that means, but
Speaker 1: that's what he's looking. That's crazy that it is a
Speaker 1: cheap for candy. But just how to curiosity are Are
Speaker 1: you a fan of pickles? I'm really not. I mean,
Speaker 1: I will say I like pickle flavor. I love things
Speaker 1: like pickle chips, but there's something about the texture that
Speaker 1: just throws me off. So I can't do pickles. And
Speaker 1: I love having somebody with me when I'm eating a
Speaker 1: sandwich with pickles on them because I don't want to
Speaker 1: go to waste, so I can always find a pickle
Speaker 1: lover to eat them. That's so funny because I I
Speaker 1: don't think I ever noticed that. Like I, I love pickles,
Speaker 1: and I've eaten with you dozens of times. I've never
Speaker 1: seen you take a pickle off your plate. But I
Speaker 1: know people who hate like cilantro or onions, but you know,
Speaker 1: I don't really think of people hitting pickles. And then
Speaker 1: I read this column from Brian Hickey and The Philly Voice,
Speaker 1: and he is outraged that pickles just come on your
Speaker 1: plate without you asking for them. So so here's a
Speaker 1: quote from his column. Some of you like pickles. I
Speaker 1: get that, but you are not decent people, at least
Speaker 1: not if you think it's okay for a restaurant to
Speaker 1: force pickles upon those of us whose stomachs turn at
Speaker 1: the mere sight or worsely, smell, of those squishy, acidic intruders.
Speaker 1: Like it's wow, he's is really funny, And he goes
Speaker 1: line by line kind of grumping about great facts about pickles,
Speaker 1: and and then why he doesn't care, like he's uh,
Speaker 1: he says, Cleopatra eight pickles for beauty. I don't care.
Speaker 1: I never met her anyway, it's it's really funny to me.
Speaker 1: And even though I guess pickles were initially offered as
Speaker 1: a palate cleanser, the same way um people use like
Speaker 1: ginger for sushi so that you can get a fresh
Speaker 1: bite of pastrami sandwich and the flavors feel all new,
Speaker 1: dear palette, like after biting into a pickle. Actually read
Speaker 1: his column came away with a bit of empathy for
Speaker 1: people who just don't love pickles slapped onto the plate
Speaker 1: as as a default. Yeah, I appreciate that, and I
Speaker 1: appreciate him speaking up on our behalf. But I was
Speaker 1: reading an article in the Toronto Star about a pickle
Speaker 1: factory up there and and it was going through some
Speaker 1: hard times. And one of the things the story talked
Speaker 1: about was that there's a Washington based pickle think tank
Speaker 1: called Pickle Packers International, and they keep stats. It's so
Speaker 1: hard to say that the pickle Packers. It sounds like
Speaker 1: a joke. It's amazing it, but it's it's real. And
Speaker 1: they keep stats on various pickle shipping metrics and various numbers.
Speaker 1: And one of the things they calculated is that North
Speaker 1: American consumers believe that the perfect pickle has seven warts
Speaker 1: per square inch, seven wartz per square inch. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know how much I really want like warty pickles.
Speaker 1: I don't want pickles at all enough they have warts,
Speaker 1: I want them even less. Well, I feel like most
Speaker 1: of them just come that way, so like I eat them.
Speaker 1: But if I had a choice, I definitely go wortless. Well,
Speaker 1: it isn't just you, And you know Europeans actually prefer
Speaker 1: wortless pickles as well, so those are the kind that
Speaker 1: tend to get sold there. And you know what other
Speaker 1: interesting thing about European pickles, and this comes from an
Speaker 1: article I read in the Atlantic. But apparently after the
Speaker 1: Berlin Wall came down, all these East German brands were
Speaker 1: quickly put to rest. They used to make this inferior
Speaker 1: new tele called now Doosi. And there was a car
Speaker 1: you might remember called the Trabanne. And you know, the
Speaker 1: joke about the Trabant was that it's best feature was
Speaker 1: the rear window defroster, because it kept your hands toasty
Speaker 1: whenever you had to push it around. Now, but the
Speaker 1: one thing that East Germans undeniably did better than everyone
Speaker 1: else was pickles, specifically this one pickle called the spree Wald,
Speaker 1: and after reunification, West German pickle makers started throwing the
Speaker 1: term spree Wald on their pickles. And you know, of course,
Speaker 1: this is kind of like Champagne, where it's this protective
Speaker 1: class of pickles. And supposedly fifty of Germany's domestic pickle
Speaker 1: market is spree Wald. Oh Man, I like that there's
Speaker 1: a superior pickle out there. And and now I've actually
Speaker 1: got two pickles on my bucket list. Cool pickles and
Speaker 1: spree Walls got eating to do. Actually, speaking of German
Speaker 1: pickle traditions. There's one I want you to clarify for me,
Speaker 1: But why don't we do that after the break? Welcome
Speaker 1: back to part time genius. So well, did I ever
Speaker 1: tell you about my friend Bar who is kicked out
Speaker 1: of our friend's house for asking for a pickle? I
Speaker 1: feel like I would remember this story. No, I don't
Speaker 1: think it is so this is so stupid and it
Speaker 1: might only be funny to me. But in a sixth
Speaker 1: or seventh grade there was this story that got widely
Speaker 1: circulated that Bart, and I of course changed his name.
Speaker 1: Here was at a sleepover and he asked for a pickle,
Speaker 1: and our other friend's mom was so offended that he
Speaker 1: was told he could never come back to the house.
Speaker 1: And it was such a weird story, but it just
Speaker 1: became part of like our middle school lure. Like everyone
Speaker 1: talked about this, everyone knew the story. And and then
Speaker 1: like a few years ago, I asked our other friend
Speaker 1: who actually hosted the sleepover, if it was true that
Speaker 1: Bart got banned from the house just for asking for
Speaker 1: a pickle. And he started laughing and he said no,
Speaker 1: because of course Bart could ask for a pickle like
Speaker 1: that was his prerogative. But then he left pickle juice
Speaker 1: and pickle parts strewn all over the counter and made
Speaker 1: such an incredible mess of the pickles that that's why
Speaker 1: he got banned. But I just love that there was
Speaker 1: all this mystery and middle school gossip over someone's mom
Speaker 1: getting angry at like a pickle incident, and also like
Speaker 1: what sort of like rock star antics supposed to have
Speaker 1: gone with these pickles. It was just like so devastating
Speaker 1: a scene that he got banned and thrown out. But
Speaker 1: I love that you felt like you had to change
Speaker 1: his name because this was such a scandal you couldn't
Speaker 1: possibly call him by his real name, so we just
Speaker 1: have to know him as bart Part. Like once a year,
Speaker 1: I'll look in fridge and see a jar pickles and
Speaker 1: think about Part. I know that you looked up German pickles,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to force your hand on your
Speaker 1: last fact, but I do want to know did you
Speaker 1: find out anything about Christmas pickles and did they actually
Speaker 1: come from Germany? So you know about Christmas pickles, does
Speaker 1: your family hide them? I mean, it's just one of
Speaker 1: those like funny Christmas traditions you hear about. My My
Speaker 1: family has always done like a tree and and carols
Speaker 1: and ornaments even though we're Hindu, and presents and all that,
Speaker 1: but like, we've actually never done a Christmas pickle for
Speaker 1: those of you who don't know about Christmas pickles or
Speaker 1: the and I'm gonna butcher this pronunciation of it, but
Speaker 1: the way naxt Gerka. The idea is that you hide
Speaker 1: a pickle ornament as the very last ornament you hang
Speaker 1: on the tree, and the kid who finds this ornament
Speaker 1: gets good luck the next year. It's a little like
Speaker 1: hiding the afi coman at the Passover Sader. But it's
Speaker 1: actually not a German tradition. It actually started at wool Worse,
Speaker 1: where they import German ornaments, and these whimsical shape started
Speaker 1: showing up in the mix like pickles, and people just
Speaker 1: assume they were traditional in Germany. Actually, there's one other
Speaker 1: good story associated with Christmas pickles that I thought i'd share.
Speaker 1: There's this legend that this Bavarian soldier named John Lower
Speaker 1: fell ill while fighting during the Civil War, and when
Speaker 1: he was on his deathbed at Andersonville, he asked for
Speaker 1: a pickle, and somehow that pickle cured him, and so
Speaker 1: from then on he hung a pickle from his Christmas
Speaker 1: tree every year, and that launched a tradition. Well I'm
Speaker 1: not sure I believe that story, but I do love it. Actually,
Speaker 1: this is old fact. I remember from mental flass that
Speaker 1: there's this place in Michigan called bury in Springs, and
Speaker 1: it refers to itself as the Christmas Pickle Capital of
Speaker 1: the world. And they have this parade everyer that's led
Speaker 1: by a grand dilmeister who just lobs these wet, fresh
Speaker 1: pickles into the crowd of like parade watchers. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it still happens, but it's one of those
Speaker 1: facts that you know, I found and and I just
Speaker 1: can never forget. But that's actually not my last fact,
Speaker 1: all right, So what do you have for us? So
Speaker 1: there's this old story that there's a law in Connecticut
Speaker 1: that pickles have to bounce a certain height to be
Speaker 1: considered pickles. So I actually asked our researcher Eaves, to
Speaker 1: look into it, and she said, while there's no law
Speaker 1: on the books, there are statutes and regulations and articles
Speaker 1: that address pickles that PLoP instead of ones that bounce.
Speaker 1: And apparently there's an article from where these pickle packers
Speaker 1: their their names were Sydney Sparer and Moses Dexler. They
Speaker 1: were actually caught for selling bad pickles. And technically these
Speaker 1: pickles were called unfit for human consumption, so they were
Speaker 1: really bad pickles. But then the Food and Drug commissioner
Speaker 1: for the state stepped in and he stated a good
Speaker 1: way to check for pickles, in addition to any other
Speaker 1: lab test, was to drop a pickle from a height
Speaker 1: of one foot and see whether they bounced. I've heard
Speaker 1: of the bounce test. I guess as they call is.
Speaker 1: Is the bounce test actually real? It is? And uh,
Speaker 1: Spara and Dexler's pickles did not bounce. Apparently they just plopped.
Speaker 1: And they were arrested and had to pay a five
Speaker 1: dollar fine and all of their bad pickles were destroyed.
Speaker 1: But you know, when I think about this, if they
Speaker 1: just stuck them in a vat of kool aid, they
Speaker 1: probably would have gotten away with it. All right. Well,
Speaker 1: you and I had a bunch of great pickle facts today.
Speaker 1: But I think the fact that my deathbed pickle story
Speaker 1: was so good, mango elastic pickle jokes were so bad,
Speaker 1: I feel like I probably should take home the trophy today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm okay with that and a big thanks to Ease
Speaker 1: for helping out with today's facts and research. Definitely a
Speaker 1: big thanks to Eaves, and thank you guys for listening.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with a full length episode tomorrow