kool-aid pickles

Pickles can be curious things. On the most basic level, almost any fruit or vegetable can be *pickled*. The primary purpose of the pickling process is preservation. This accounts for the standard brine, vinegar and sugar concoctions. Color alteration is nothing new. Eggs pickled with a splash of beet juice produce quite the colorful result. Kool-aid pickles appear to be a brand new twist on a very old theme. Notes here:

"It's the yin and yang of the condiment world. A blending of color and flavor that almost defies description. Almost. It is called the Kool-Aid Pickle and, really, that describes it perfectly. I know the look on your face right now (it's not pretty, by the way), because I saw it on my wife when I announced that I was going to make up a batch of Kool-Aid Pickles. The fact that she had no idea what a Kool-Aid Pickle was in no way diminished her reaction. "I don't even like pickles. I'm not trying it; it sounds horrible," she said. "You like sweet and sour pork," I replied in something of a non sequitur. "OK, I'll try it. But only one bite."... The first time I ever heard of a Kool-Aid Pickle was in a Page Three article in this newspaper a few weeks ago. It was relaying a story that ran in the New York Times and was picked up by media outlets around the world. The recipe apparently has its origins in the region around the Mississippi Delta but, thanks to the New York Times and the Internet, it is spreading to other parts of the country (and the world), including my house. It may be giving it more credit than it deserves to call it a recipe. To create a Kool-Aid Pickle, you simply marinate dill pickles in your favorite flavor of Kool-Aid — Tropical Punch seems to be the preferred variety. The recipe I followed said I should pour out the brine from a jar of dill pickles, replace it with the Kool-Aid, then let it soak for a few days. Judging by what I saw on the Internet, other people totally submerge the pickles in what appears to be a bucket of the drink mix."
---"Kool-Aid livens up family pickle jar," Ventura County Star (California), May 31, 2007, Community section (no page provided)

Here is the original New York Times article:
"A GALLON jar of pickles sits near the register at Lee's Washerette and Food Market, a mustard-colored cinder-block bunker on the western fringe of this Mississippi Delta town. Those pickles were once mere dills. They were once green. Their exteriors remain pebbly, a reminder that long ago they began their lives on a farm, on the ground, as cucumbers. But they now have an arresting color that combines green and garnet, and a bracing sour-sweet taste that they owe to a long marinade in cherry or tropical fruit or strawberry Kool-Aid. Kool-Aid pickles violate tradition, maybe even propriety. Depending on your palate and perspective, they are either the worst thing to happen to pickles since plastic brining barrels or a brave new taste sensation to be celebrated. The pickles have been spotted as far afield as Dallas and St. Louis, but their cult is thickest in the Delta region, among the black majority population. In the Delta, where they fetch between 50 cents and a dollar, Kool-Aid pickles have earned valued space next to such beloved snacks as pickled eggs and pigs' feet at community fairs, convenience stores and filling stations. And as their appeal has widened, some people have seen a good business opportunity. Even the lawyers have gotten involved. Children are the primary consumers, but a recent trip through the region revealed that the market for Kool-Aid pickles is maturing...Billie Williams, 56, a special-education teacher at Carver Elementary, never saw one when she was a child. But she did eat dill pickles impaled on peppermint sticks, and she remembers how friends sucked the juice from cut lemons through peppermint sticks repurposed as straws. ''That's the same kind of taste,'' she said. ''Same as how they used to dip pickle spears in dry Kool-Aid mix for that pucker.'' The school sells Kool-Aid pickles from the popular red flavor family at its fund-raisers. ''They're easy to make a gallon,'' Ms. Williams said. ''You pull the pickles from the jar, cut them in halves, make double-strength Kool-Aid, add a pound of sugar, shake and let it sit --best in the refrigerator -- for about a week. The taste takes to anything. A while back I made a mistake and bought a jar of pickle chips instead of halves or wholes. Came out fine. This whole Kool-Aid pickle thing is going so good, you wonder why somebody hasn't put a patent on them.'' No patent application has been filed, but the name Kool-Aid is a trademark owned by Kraft Foods. Upon learning of the pickles, Bridget MacConnell, a senior manager of corporate affairs at Kraft, recovered, and then pronounced, ''We endorse our consumers' finding innovative ways to use our products.''...At the Stephensville Mini-Mart, set amid the cotton fields and catfish ponds between Shaw and Indianola, the owner, Hugh Davis, began stocking Kool-Aid pickles earlier this year at the behest of local children. ''They're not for me,'' said Mr. Davis, 66. ''It's the kids who've done it. They'll create a line of food for you; they'll dab a little something here and there and make it their own. They're good at inventing.'' Recently, some Delta grocers began selling jars of ready-made pickles. And entrepreneurs are emerging. At Lambard's Wholesale Meats in Cleveland, Allen Williams sells plastic gallon jugs of Best Maid dills, plastered with the Kool-Aid packs that denote the flavor within. (Mr. Williams declined to reveal who actually makes his Kool-Aid pickles.)"
---"A Sweet So Sour: Kool-Aid Dills," JOHN T. EDGE, The New York Times, May 9, 2007, Section F; Column 3; Dining, Dining Out/Cultural Desk; Pg. 1