How High Should Your Pickle Bounce?

Any pickle that “splats” is hardly worthy of the name.

Reference Librarians Debra Pond and Steve Rice testing pickles

How high should your pickle bounce? Does a splatting pickle disqualify it from the title?

Those well-versed in Trivial Pursuit, bar trivia nights, or the fine art of dropping random facts at charcuterie parties, likely know the mythical legend of the bouncing pickles of Connecticut. The proud keeper of fun facts will often announce, perhaps mid-Brie bite, that Connecticut law once required pickles to bounce (yes, bounce) in order to be considered real pickles.

But is there any truth to this long-running factoid?

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Courtesy of the Connecticut State Library

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The story has become so widespread that the Connecticut State Library cited it as one of the most frequently asked questions their reference librarians receive every year.

The librarian Steve Rice was adamant on discovering the truth behind the supposed pickle law, uncovered after hours of digging through state laws, regulations, and dusty ordinances by Rice and his team. It wasn’t until they searched the Hartford Courant archives that they struck gold in the form of a newspaper headline from 1948, where the pickle packers Sidney Sparer and Moses Dexler were arrested for selling pickles “unfit for human consumption.”

The Connecticut Food and Drug Commissioner Frederick Holcomb explained how to test for a quality pickle: you can test it in a laboratory, or “you can drop it from one foot, and it should bounce.” The offending pickles did not. Sparer was fined $500 — the maximum penalty allowed at the time, and the bounceless pickles were destroyed, as nature and God intended.

So while there may not be proof of any official law surrounding the bounce test, there are grounds for arrest if your pickles are deemed ”unfit for human consumption.”

Curious to confirm this bit of pickle lore, Rice and another reference librarian, Debra Pond, conducted their own highly scientific bounce test, by dropping pickles onto a table at the Reference Library. The results? Any pickle that splats on impact is hardly worthy of the name.

So, thank you to the brave truth-seekers at the Connecticut State Library for getting to the bottom of this dill-lightful mystery once and for all.

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By: Rachel Manson

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