gherkin

A variety of cucumber (Cucumis sativa) or its very small fruits. (Family: Cucurbitaceae.)

Gherkin (French cornichon) is a young cucumber (Cucumis sativus), picked when 1 to 3 inches (3 to 8 cm) in length and pickled in jars or cans with vinegar (often flavoured with herbs, particularly dill;

The term can also be used to refer to the West Indian Burr Gherkin (Cucumis anguria), a related plant species, originally West African, that was introduced to the West Indies, probably by the Portuguese. This ‘true’ or Burr Gherkin or badunga cannot interbreed with the ‘true’ cucumber (Cucumis sativus), which is the condiment vegetable now generally known as the gherkin or dill pickle. The West Indian Burr Gherkin is edible and may be pickled but must be picked when no longer than 1.5 inches (4 cm) long, since it becomes bitter and spiny if allowed to grow larger. (The word ‘pickle’ itself is derived from the Dutch pikel, a salt or acid preserving fluid.)

The fruit itself may have originated in India, but the ‘pickled gherkin’ was known, although not by that name, to the ancient Mesopotamians no later than the 3rd century BC and enjoyed in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The gherkin is mentioned in English in the seventeenth century, although the English diarist Samuel Pepys describes the ‘girkin’ in his entry for 1661-12-01 as ‘a rare thing’.

The gherkin may have been introduced to the American public by one Minton Collins of Richmond, Virginia, who was offering it for sale in the Virginia Gazette in 1792, although it might have been known in Colonial times under another name. Pickling of gherkins was at first a domestic activity, but the jar of pickles became a commercial product in France as early as the 1820s. Electrocution of a Gherkin The phrase "jerking the gherkin" means masturbation in slang.