Crossing Delancey, a Lower East Side love story, is the superior movie about pickles and family expectations, but today we focus on Seth Rogen’s new movie for HBO Max. An American Pickle features two timely refreshments: pickles and seltzers. The late summer harvest yields cucumbers, now heavy on the vine, while modern health habits and charmed marketing have ushered in a golden age of seltzer.
What makes for an amusing satire on paper does not always translate to the screen. Herschel Greenbaum (Seth Rogen) falls into a vat of pickles into the 1920s Williamsburg, Brooklyn and awakes in the present preserved by the brine. His great grandson of the same age (also Seth Rogen) shows him around Brooklyn. This Rip Van Winkle tale is based loosely on a four-part serialization in The New Yorker that lampooned the modern world — newly delayed adulthood, fraying speech patterns, and, most acutely, then currenet ascendant hipster culture and its commitment to authentic dirty reality, which was at odds with its prerequisite wealth/disposable income.
According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, in the fairytale forerunners to “Rip Van Winkle”, slumber advances the character to a new life, skipping all the nasty bits. A blessing in disguise. The extended nap simply marks the passage of time in the Judaic parable version of the story (about sowing metaphorical seeds for future generation to reap). Here it demonstrates how your forefathers persevered through a lot of shit, sometimes literal, only to bear time-spoiled descendants, eternally complacent and ignorant to true hardship.
The movie’s central farce is derived from reveling in the misunderstandings and ignorance of an old-timer. But, really, jokes like a fridge stuffed with non-dairy milks and kombucha lost any comedic edge six years ago and could only elicit laughter from an eleven-year-old, which is an ideal audience for this movie, which doesn’t require a working understanding of sarcasm. (A better joke: Rogen’s broadly hipster getup that makes him look like Ness or a Pokemon trainer. How far his sartorial presence come since Knocked Up.) In that regard, the film has failed Simon Rich’s original satire, housed in the “Shouts & Murmurs” section of the magazine.
Films necessitate more fully developed worlds, and An American Pickle loses much of Rich’s stark humor, ekeing out an entirely different story. Dispensing with the girlfriend subplot, An American Pickle is uniquely reimagined as a family rivalry. Herschel and Ben wind up engaging in feature-length one-upmanship, Greenbaum vs Greenbaum— a competition that suggests the enduring struggle to live up to one’s parents’ expectations. The elder pulls himself up by the bootstraps, achieving a personal and public success that eludes Ben. Rather than help his forebear, he jealously sabotages him. The plan backfires, for a time, when Herschel’s shameless out-dated opinions (on gender roles, politics, religion) catch fire. Someone even proposes a run for office, an ugly one-off comparison to our current Head of State that isn’t even enough to fuel a complete joke. A Face in the Crowd this is not.
The most appetizing scene in An American Pickle doesn’t concern pickles at all, but seltzer water. Herschel wistfully observes a well-to-do lady quenching her thirst with a cup full of bubbly water from a street vendor, who serves it from a glass (in fact there are five of them resting atop a towel on the push cart), a nicety of the past especially unimaginable now in the age of COVID.
A rapid history video on how seltzer took over America
A chart showing a spike in hard seltzer sales since corona
A podcast on finding the best seltzer called Seltzer Death Match from some people from Gimlet and NPR.
The man who first found a way of infusing water with carbon dioxide called it “Impregnating Water with Fixed Air” (Joseph Priestly, 1767). Seltzer is an elevated luxury for Herschel, but for me it was the beverage of a childhood without soda. Now most of the country indulges in a drink that was popular with moms in the late 80s.
The subject of immigrant guilt and familial disappointment brings to my mind a few famous Asian men: artist David Choe, chefs David Chang and Eddie Huang, all of whom have divulged at length on the internalized issue. A great filmic parallel eludes me, but I am reminded of Lulu Wang’s The Farewell from 2019 which also touches on the issue. (If you can think of more, please tell me.)
THE FAREWELL seems like something I should care more about. Directed by a Chinese-American woman, and starring Asian actors, this American film released by an American studio, should probably stoke as much excitement as Crazy Rich Asians, but since its theme is not one of love and capitalism and features only a fake banquet wedding, it was met with little fanfare. Marketed as a comedy, this A24 release is a “will-they won’t-they” movie except the predicament is not whether characters will get together, but whether they’ll notify the family matriarch of her probable impending doom due to stage four lung cancer. **Speaking only from personal experience, I assume this heresy/technically illegal maneuver is not uncommon practice among Asians where participating doctors lie to patients and consult with children behind closed doors. My grandmother, too, lives her life unaware of the malignant mass overtaking her organs and coughs up blood on the regular, thinking it a most curious and updated symptom her allergies. Don’t worry, she’s happy. Maybe.**
In the film, her family members go to great lengths to obscure the diagnosis, citing reasons of filial duty to bear the burdens in her stead. There arises a few pointed gestures toward the west versus east dilemma faced by Asian emigrant families, which I wish the film leaned harder into. The Farewell prefers a looser structure delineated by mood, sort of like a waterbed. The film’s heavy-lifting relies on the main character, the granddaughter Billi, but, it PAINS me to say, the actress who plays her isn’t up to task. As the depressed aspiring writer who didn’t get a Guggenheim Fellowship, the rapper/comedian known as Awkwafina (who has yet to swap back to her Nora Lum), alternates between dumbstruck and crestfallen by the potential loss of her grandmother and emotes little more than sustained sullenness. She’s a one-note hunchback, a dead fish that comes alive, as a performer, only when she does Frankie Valli karaoke in front of guests at fake wedding. Performance and the realm of comedy are still where she excels, and it shows.
BUT WHERE ARE THE PICKLES?
This pickle is from Cronenberg’s Shivers.
Simon Rich writes, “There are three important keys to pickling: patience, hard work, and rage.” Such is not true today. Fermentation is en-vogue and pickling recipes proliferate. Many add vinegar, imparts tart acidity and increases shelf-life. These bread-and-butter pickles, by another name, are not of the same ilk as those so central to the movie or Jewish appetizing cuisine at large. The kosher-style pickle emerges from the natural fermentation induced by a salt brine, which turns it sour and bleeds it of emerald sheen. The mouth-puckering quality of a full-sour is unmatched for some — “the words alone summon up the incomparable, nose‐twitching aroma” says Mimi Sheraton, food writer for the New York Times, reminiscing on dill pickles past.
Making them is easy since you don't have to master a ratio of vinegar/sugar/water. Kirby cucumbers with their bumps and crags are the only acceptable kind to use. I was only able to squeeze six into my pint jar. Maybe you’ll have better luck or are blessed with more canning equipment. You don’t actually need a special vessel: use a metal or ceramic container or a wooden crock, which could impart a nice patina. The traditional spice blend comprises garlic, coriander, maybe some mustard seeds, and definitely dill— preferably fresh, but I used the dried kind (dill weed) and it turned out just as well. The longer they sit in the brine, the more sour they become. Just remember to eat them within a week.
Kosher Garlic Dill Pickles
Adapted from Mimi Sheraton.
6 Kirby cucumbers
3 tablespoons salt
3 cloves of garlic, crushed but unpeeled
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon of each of the following: black peppercorn, coriander, red pepper flakes, mustard seed
1 tablespoon dried dill
Water
Boil water, enough to fill your jar. Add the salt, and let it cool (add ice if you’re impatient).
Stand your cucumbers in the jar or vessel of your choosing. Add garlic and spices.
Pour the solution over the cucumbers until it overflows.
Weigh down the cucumbers with something clean so they’re completely covered in the salt brine. Don’t actually screw on a lid. (I used a footed bowl and then placed plate on top.)
Check in the next day and remove any scum. They’re ready to eat as soon as you like. Mine achieved full-sour status after four days, but it may be sooner depending on how hot your kitchen runs.
Links:
Mark Bittman’s Kosher Pickles, the Right Way
Mimi Sheraton’s Garlic Kosher Dill Pickles
Guss’ Pickles, deemed the best store-bought version in the above article, which has been around since 1920.
David Choe in conversation (with Joe Rogan, sorry)