Pick­les. A sim­ple word, per­haps, for a hum­ble food. Yet behind it lies a pro­found sto­ry of cul­ture, resilience, and human con­nec­tion — a sto­ry that spans cen­turies and continents.

The jour­ney of the pick­le begins long before mod­ern food cul­ture. The Renais­sance pro­vid­ed the tech­no­log­i­cal and sci­en­tif­ic foun­da­tion for food preser­va­tion, while the Enlight­en­ment cre­at­ed the social and eco­nom­ic con­di­tions to make these meth­ods wide­ly acces­si­ble. What began as a prac­ti­cal neces­si­ty became a sym­bol of human inge­nu­ity, cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, and connection.

At Mattmo Cre­ative, a com­mu­ni­ca­tion and design agency root­ed in Amsterdam’s his­toric Jew­ish neigh­bor­hood, we’ve spent decades explor­ing the idea of ​“the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of things.” This phi­los­o­phy has guid­ed us as cofounders of Dutch Cui­sine, a move­ment ded­i­cat­ed to pre­serv­ing and cel­e­brat­ing Dutch food cul­ture. It also led us to an unex­pect­ed chap­ter of Amsterdam’s past: the rich his­to­ry of the pickle.

Pick­les play a key role in shap­ing cul­tur­al identity.

Before World War II, Ams­ter­dam was home to over five hun­dred pick­le ven­dors and fifty pick­le busi­ness­es, many run by Jew­ish fam­i­lies who immi­grat­ed from East­ern Europe. These fam­i­lies brought with them tra­di­tion­al pick­ling meth­ods, pre­serv­ing not only cucum­bers but their cul­ture and com­mu­ni­ty. As we delved deep­er — much like reach­ing into a tall pick­le bar­rel — we dis­cov­ered that Amsterdam’s pick­le indus­try wasn’t just a local phe­nom­e­non. It was a lens through which to view glob­al trends in migra­tion, resilience, and food culture.

Our research took us across the Atlantic to New York City’s Low­er East Side, where Jew­ish immi­grants car­ried their pick­ling tra­di­tions and trans­formed them into an inte­gral part of the city’s iden­ti­ty. Their craft became a sym­bol of immi­grant inge­nu­ity, com­mu­ni­ty, and sur­vival. By trac­ing the pickle’s jour­ney, we unearthed a hid­den world of fam­i­ly sto­ries and eco­nom­ic con­tri­bu­tions that helped shape New York’s cul­tur­al and lit­er­al foundations.

To visu­al­ly recon­struct this world, we pored over archival pho­tographs, munic­i­pal records, and fam­i­ly trees. With the pre­ci­sion of inves­tiga­tive sto­ry­tellers, we mapped the con­nec­tions between his­to­ry and cul­ture, show­ing how some­thing as unas­sum­ing as a pick­le became a sym­bol of Jew­ish iden­ti­ty and resilience. For many fam­i­lies, pick­les were not just food — they were a link to their roots and a tes­ta­ment to shared histories.

Our work brought us clos­er to New York’s pick­le fam­i­lies, reveal­ing how these tra­di­tions were passed down and adapt­ed over time. Four years ago, we pub­lished De Zure Stad (The Sour City), a visu­al explo­ration of Amsterdam’s pick­le his­to­ry. It became a best­seller, find­ing a home in insti­tu­tions like the Stedelijk Muse­um and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ams­ter­dam. Yet the sto­ry of pick­les is also one of loss. Many of Amsterdam’s pick­le mak­ers, pre­dom­i­nant­ly Jew­ish, were mur­dered in the Holo­caust, leav­ing a void in the city’s cul­tur­al land­scape that still lingers.

Pick­les reflect the con­tri­bu­tions of cul­ture, sci­ence, and egal­i­tar­i­an ideals to the democ­ra­ti­za­tion of food.

In New York, the pick­le evolved into a broad­er sym­bol of the immi­grant expe­ri­ence and cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty. From small Jew­ish-owned busi­ness­es like Guss’ Pick­les to the bil­lion-dol­lar US pick­le indus­try, the hum­ble cucum­ber has become a tes­ta­ment to resilience and adapt­abil­i­ty. While com­pa­nies like Vla­sic dom­i­nate the mar­ket, small­er oper­a­tions like the Pick­le Guys remind us of the immi­grant roots of this icon­ic food.

Pick­les mir­ror the evo­lu­tion of Amer­i­ca itself: from colo­nial neces­si­ty to indus­tri­al inno­va­tion, from cul­tur­al tra­di­tion to a sym­bol of a diverse, ever-chang­ing soci­ety. Today, New York’s food cul­ture reflects this rich his­to­ry, blend­ing fla­vors from Jew­ish pick­les to Kore­an kim­chi — a tes­ta­ment to the city’s spir­it of renew­al and connection.

Ulti­mate­ly, the pick­le is more than a pre­served cucum­ber. It’s a ves­sel of mem­o­ry, a sym­bol of sur­vival, and a sto­ry of shared his­to­ry. From ancient preser­va­tion tech­niques to its role as a cul­tur­al touch­stone, the pick­le embod­ies the endur­ing spir­it of inno­va­tion and adapt­abil­i­ty. It serves as a reminder of how food con­nects us to his­to­ry, bridges diverse com­mu­ni­ties, and pre­serves the essence of those who came before us.

The his­to­ry of pick­les runs like an invis­i­ble thread through the world.

Excerpt from The Pick­led City: The Sto­ry of New York Pick­les by Paul van Ravestein and Monique Mul­der, pub­lished by Chron­i­cle Books 2026