Jewel of A Find

One of my favorite childhood memories growing up was when my parents took me to the Livingston Mall in Livingston, N.J. After shopping at Bamberger’s, Sears, Epstein’s and Hahne’s we always found time to stop at the mall’s Nathan’s Famous restaurant. Nathan’s was a huge establishment with separate stations for pizza, seafood, deli sandwiches, hamburgers, chicken and—of course—its world-famous French fries and hot dogs. Long gone, this restaurant was so huge that its site is now mall’s Barnes & Noble store.

I almost always opted for a hot dog, and once I received it I would head over to the condiments counter where they would have pumps for mustard and ketchup, and huge vats of steaming sauerkraut and of relish.

Oh, that relish! It wasn’t any relish. It was emerald relish—a glow-in-the-dark neon green hue that couldn’t possibly appear naturally on any cucumber in nature. But it was delicious! The best part was taking the stainless-steel lid off the vat and using the special spoon to scoop it out—a foot-long iced tea-style spoon with a twisted stem specially designed to reach into the bottom of the vat.

Then on one visit something horrible happened. Nathan’s replaced their proprietary emerald relish with that standard green variety! It just was not the same.

Luckily, B&G still made an Emerald Relish that was sold in the supermarket. But several years ago, it too disappeared from store shelves. Every time I went shopping I would look for B&G Emerald Relish, never to find it again. My guess is it had been discontinued.

But in late November the relish gods smiled down on me. I was in Arlington, Texas, profiling the new WinCo Foods store. As part of my assignment I went to the Kroger down the road to do a price check. And what did I find when I walked down the condiment aisle? A sparkling jar of emerald green relish! Actually, it was a 12-ounce jar of Super Green Sweet Pickle Relish from the Puckered Pickle Co. out of Chicago. I instantly snapped up a jar.

I’d like to thank the folks at the Puckered Pickle Co. for reviving a cherished childhood memory, and I’d like to call upon New Jersey’s supermarkets to add a facing or two of Puckered Pickle Co. Super Green Sweet Pickle Relish to their condiment sets. It would be a jewel of a find for fellow relish lovers.