ST. JOE – The smell of wet fairgrounds grass has barely given way to the heavy scent of deep-fried funnel cakes, curly fries and cheese curds, when you spot the sign.
“Homemade Ice Cream. New Flavor: Pickle.”
Yes, in addition to deep-fried pickles, tours of the pickle factory, pickle sandwiches – $2 each, $3 “with meat” – and pickle T-shirts, when you’re at the St. Joe Pickle Festival you can eat pickle ice cream.
And don’t worry, they made 25 gallons of the green, gooey goodness, so they’re unlikely to run out.
Especially if Whysper Topp continues to order the lemon instead.
“I tried it and liked it, but I wanted to have the lemon,” the 10-year-old Auburn girl says between bites.
So how is pickle ice cream?
Well, it’s not made from dill pickles, so it’s sweet – more like a sweet lime ice cream without the tartness and neon green pickle chunks dotting its pale green surface.
“It’s very good,” says Whysper’s grandmother, Sue Myers. “You make fun of it, but until you taste it … ”
“It reminds you of a candied fruitcake,” says Whysper’s mother, Doreen Topp. “It’s pretty ingenious.”
During all of this discussion, Whysper continues to put away the lemon ice cream, which was also a perfect antidote to the sweltering, humid air outside the St. Joe Lions Club tent.
For 14 years, St. Joe has celebrated the pickle, that incredible treat that starts out as a lowly cucumber until magically transformed into the perfect accompaniment for an endless list of foods, from giant kosher spears next to a deli sandwich to the key ingredient in tartar sauce. Where, after all, would a cheeseburger be without pickles?
This year’s festival included classic events like the kids’ tractor pull, horseshoes, fireworks, a parade, music, and myriad pickles.
In the midst of all this appears a young woman in high heels, a little black dress, a white satin sash and a tiara. Miss Pickle?
“No, I’m just Miss Northeast,” says Julianna Zehr, 17, who somehow manages to look regal even while holding a corndog on a stick. She just received her crown a week ago.
“It was only my second pageant,” Zehr says. “I’m very excited about it. Little kids look up to you, like ‘Is that a princess?’ You get a lot of looks, a lot of attention.”
