I think I’ve recovered from the (totally deserved) shaming I received from my last post.  In fact, I’ve recovered and learned my lesson enough that I’m going to do at least a wee bit of research before concluding this post to shelter myself from more ridicule.  Here goes:

I frequently get lunch from one of the various gourmet food trucks that park on the street right by my office.  They’re great, and I’ve tried a large number of them since this trend started a little while back.  Last week, I was happy to see a Brazilian one that I’ve gone to before.  I’m a creature of habit, so I didn’t even look at the menu as I strolled up and placed my order (a carne asada burrito, por supuesto).  I stepped back as my co-workers ordered.  “What did you get?” I asked one of them.  “I’m trying that new sandwich they have,” she said pointing to the menu on the side of the truck.  Having bypassed the whole menu-looking part of the process before, I followed her finger and read the description of the meal aloud.  “That sounds good,” I said.  I was about to move onto something else when a little spark fired in my brain.  “Wait a minute – it says it comes with ‘pickled cucumbers.’ Aren’t those just called ‘pickles?'”  She cocked her head a little before saying, “Yeah…right?”  “I guess we’ll see,” I said.  Her sandwich came, and sure enough, it was topped with what you and I would just call “pickles.”  The funny thing (to me at least) is that when I first read the description, I had the quick thought that I would order it without those pickled cucumbers.  I pictured them as shredded for some reason and not tasting like something I’d like.  As soon as I realized that they were probably just regular pickles, the sandwich sounded even better to me.  That begs the question: why wouldn’t they just say “pickles?”

Funny you should ask.  I did a little research (old dog, new tricks, yadda yadda yadda) with the always-accurate Wikipedia, and I learned two very important things.  I found an entry for “pickled cucumber,” which said that it is “commonly known as a pickle in Australia, Canada, and the United States or generically as gherkins in the UK.”  I can’t help but notice that Brazil is not on that list, thereby making their menu item of “pickled cucumbers” not only permissible, but downright authentic.  My apologies to the yummy burrito makers.

The second thing I learned made me contort my face and shake my head in a very specific way.  Let’s see if you do the same.  Under types of pickled cucumbers, the last one on the list is “Kool-Aid pickles.”  The description: “Kool-Aid pickles or ‘koolickles,’ enjoyed by children in parts of the Southern United States, are created by soaking dill pickles in a mixture of Kool-Aid and pickle brine.”  Maybe I’m an uninformed Yank making a snap decision here, but that sounds fucking disgusting.  I was doing just fine not knowing about that.  In fact, I might have to rethink this whole “actually looking things up before I write about them” thing.