Kool-Aid pickles violate tradition, maybe even propriety. Depending on your palate and perspective, they are either the worst thing to happen to pickles since plastic brining barrels or a brave new taste sensation to be celebrated.

Image Credit... Kate Medley for The New York Times

The pickles have been spotted as far afield as Dallas and St. Louis, but their cult is thickest in the Delta region, among the black majority population. In the Delta, where they fetch between 50 cents and a dollar, Kool-Aid pickles have earned valued space next to such beloved snacks as pickled eggs and pigs’ feet at community fairs, convenience stores and filling stations. And as their appeal has widened, some people have seen a good business opportunity. Even the lawyers have gotten involved.

Children are the primary consumers, but a recent trip through the region revealed that the market for Kool-Aid pickles is maturing.

At Carver Upper Elementary School in Indianola, students in Jodi Sumner’s third-grade class have no reservations about the propriety of cucumbers flavored with vinegar and drink mix. When this writer, lugging a jar of tropical-fruit-flavored pickles, recently asked the 29 students who liked to eat Kool-Aid pickles, 29 hands shot up.

The names came fast: Ladarius, Fredericka and Kobreana, among others. So did the impressions: “It’s a candy pickle.” And “I like it the same as dipping hot Cheetos in ice cream.” And “Have you ever tried one with a watermelon Blow Pop?” followed by a pantomime of how the Blow Pop stick can be inserted so that the candy appears as a knob at one end of the pickle, allowing the eater to alternate between bites of sour-sweet pickle and licks of sweet-sour Blow Pop.