"like pickles and ice cream"

[Jonathan Lighter]

The latest Progressive insurance commercial
http://www.progressive.com/commercials/unicorns.aspx has goofy, affable Flo
telling a young couple that some insurance bundles "go together like peanut
butter and jelly!" Hubby says, "Like hamburgers and fries!" And pregnant
wifey says, "Like pickles and ice cream!" When Flo tries to top that with
"Like unicorns and glitter!" she falls flat. So "like pickles and ice cream"
is supposed to be an unremarkable collocation.

 Google turns up nearly 1,000 hits on "together like pickles and ice cream,"
many or most of them ironic (i.e., they don't go together at all).

According to a 1988 GB snippet:  "Diets and pregnancy seem to go together
like pickles and ice cream. 'A doctor knows from years and years of
frustrating experience just how much mothers tend to shovel in,' writes the
author of one popular birth and baby book." That may be the earliest p&ic
"go togther ex."

Now for the mysteries.

I first encountered this combination in the '50s as a humorous but typical
food craving of expectant moms.  This appears to be the nearly universal
interpretation today. However, a GB search reveals the pairing up of
"pickles and ice cream" as far back as the 1890s as a combination that may
be bad for children, or anyone, even if eaten simply at the same meal. A
1903 ex., from a medical periodical, humorously connects the combination
with young, working-class women, but surely they're not all pregnant!  My
impression is that most early exx. imply litlle more than that children and
teenagers will gorge on pickles and ice cream (because they have no sense)
and then get sick.

 A 1968 ex. refers to the craving during pregnancy as "time-honored," but GB
reveals *nothing* relevant before 1967 in a search for "pickles and ice
cream" + "expecting" [or "expectant"/"pregnant"/"pregnancy"].  It does find
an unmistakable ex. of the less euphonious "ice cream and pickles" from
Doris Lessing in "1952" (though WorldCat suggests "1954").

What we know: "pickles and ice cream" seems to have entered pop culture as a
sign of pregnancy no earlier than the 1950s.

What we don't know: Metaphorically, do "pickles and ice cream" go together
"like love and marriage" (GB: 1950s, also the time when, acc. to the song,
"Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage").  Or do they "go
together" metaphorically only in an ironic sense?

JL


--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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