I despise pickles. They are a despicable, hideous creation. They are also one of the only foods that are capable of contaminating their environment and ruining a perfectly good meal.
Open a jar of pickles and everything in the room will smell and even taste a little bit like a pickle.
Stick a pickle on a plate alongside a pile of French fries and a cheeseburger and you’ve likely contaminated the entire plate of food with the underlying taste of pickle.
Get a little pickle juice on your hand and it will smell like a pickle all day long.
This is why it’s crazy for restaurants to randomly place pickles on plates without any warning. I can’t tell you how many times my cheeseburger or hot dog has arrived with with unspoken pickle garnishing the plate.
A random food item placed alongside my meal without any warning.
What the hell is that?
Last week I ordered a sandwich at a local bakery. When I opened the styrofoam container 15 minutes later at my desk, I found my roast beef sandwich and potato chips sitting alongside an unrequested, unannounced, unwanted pickle. Four inches of vinegary ickiness.
I took one bite of my sandwich and tossed the entire meal away. Everything in that styrofoam container tasted like pickle.
What other food item is indiscriminately placed on a plate without any indication on the menu or by the waitstaff? What right do pickles have to this uninvited, unannounced, surprise status?
Who the hell do pickles think they are?
Finding an unannounced pickle on your plate is akin to finding a dollop of mashed potatoes, a cube of braised beef, or a scoop of vanilla ice cream alongside your chicken piccata. As a general practice, restaurants don’t place unannounced food items on our plates. We order what we want to eat, and that is what is ultimately delivered to the customer.
Except when it comes to the damn pickle.
Not everyone enjoys a pickle. Many people despise them at least as much as I do. Few foods can contaminate the environment around them like a pickle can.
This random, unannounced, surprise pickle must be brought to an end.
