In a pickle

I'm a pickle fan, and pickles are a staple in my kitchen.

I always have a bottle or two of Vlasic Kosher Dills in the fridge, and a backup in the cupboard. There are certain sandwiches, e.g., toasted/grilled cheese, that cry out for the addition of a slice or two of pickle. And pickle is a key ingredient of a Gus Sandwich - bacon, cheddar, lettuce, mayo, and pickle on pump - which my brother Tom (nickname: Gus) and I invented when we were kids. Every once in a while I just have to break down and buy a package of bacon and make myself a Gus or two.

When Tom and I invented the Gus, the pickle of choice would have been a Dailey's (sp???) Kosher Dill, which I'm pretty sure no longer exists. With no Dailey's (sp???) available, I easily transitioned to Vlasic, and am also okay with Cain's. 

What these three brands have in common is that they are green. As in green green. Think Kermit.

A lot of the other kosher dills - like Claussen - are whiter. And they're fine, mostly. I just don't like them on sandwiches. It's not easy being a Gus if there's no bright green pickle on board. 

When you get a deli sandwich out, the pickle on the side is likely to be one of these whitish ones. 

Claussen and deli pickles are, of course, considered the real deal, more natural, more like what you'd find in ye olde pickle barrel.

Or in a jar of my grandmother's pickles.

As a kid, I wasn't wild about Grandma's pickles, but as an adult I grew to love them.

Grandma pickled up a storm, using - whenever she could - her homegrown cukes. Every year, she'd package up a carton and send it via Railway Express to Worcester. The carton was heavy on the dill pickles, but also included a Mason jar or two of pickled veggies, and some sort of salami or sausage - generally a foul-smelling summer sausage, encased in what looked like a tire tread - that Grandma just knew wasn't available in Worcester. 

When my grandmother died, my mother lugged a bunch of Grandma's pickles back from Chicago with her on the plane, and divvied them up among my sibs.

My most emotional moment after Grandma's death was when I ate the last of her pickles. I stood there with the fridge door open, crying as I debated whether to eat that last pickle standing now or put it off for another day. (I went the now route.)

So, yeah, pickles. I like them.

But for some reason - perhaps because when I'm in buying mode at the grocery store, I'm going for the bright green ones - I'd never heard of Grillo's, even though they're local, and even though they're sold at my store. 

I've heard about them now because Grillo's Pickles is engaged in a suit against the company that, until a couple of years back, was their contract manufacturer. Grillo asserts that Patriot Pickle is now producing a pickle that rips off their secret formula, and is selling them - at a lower price than Grillo's - at Whole Foods under their 365 brand. The 365's sit smack dab on the shelf next to the Grillo's, but go for 30% less.

(Side note on 365: I shop occasionally at Whole, and have occasionally purchased 365 products. But mostly I don't find the quality there. I mean, maybe they can do rip-off pickles, but what I value in a paper towel is that it's actually absorbent.)

Grillo’s is asking the court to block Patriot Pickle from using its recipe and order Patriot to remove the pickles allegedly based on Grillo’s recipe from store shelves. The Grillo’s lawsuit also seeks unspecified damages.(Source: Boston Globe)

And that's not just any old recipe This one was the one that Travis Grillo's grandfather had invented 100+ years ago. Travis himself deployed that recipe when he started out running a pickle cart in downtown Boston. (If I'm wondering why I've never noticed Grillo's at he grocery store, I'm extra wondering why I never noticed Travis Grillo when he had a pickle cart about 10 minutes from where I live, in a spot that I passed several times a week when Grillo was hawking pickles.)

Anyway, Travis Grillo eventually graduated from pickle cart to product on the shelves of plenty of grocery stores nationwide (10,000 of them). A couple of years ago, about the same time the company was acquired by King Hawaiian, Grillo ended its agreement with Patriot Pickle. Which apparently didn't stop Patriot Pickle from going ahead with a pickle of their own. Of course, according to Grillo's, that pickle is not exactly Patriot's own. It's Grillo's own. 

Whoever's own those pickles are, earlier this year, Patriot Pickle started producing pickles for the Whole Food 365 brand. 

And Grillo wants them to cease and desist using its secret formula.

Meanwhile, although they're the more authentic whitish pickles than my favorite greenies, I think that next time I'm shopping, I'll get a container of Grillo's. Most of the commenters on the Globe article rave about them (while also dissing the container which, it sems, doesn't do a great job containing).

I'll get a container and give those Grillo's a whirl, but I'm pretty sure I won't be using one on a Gus sandwich. You don't mess with perfection.