Andrew is a post-doctoral researcher in North Carolina focused on population and conservation genetics in hydrothermal vent communities.
My grandfather, who was on board Marine ships from 1928 through the Korean War, used to suggest eating pickles for seasickness. During my recent cruise in the Sargasso Sea, I finally had a chance to test his theory and it worked. Was it just a placebo effect, was it the vitamin C, or something else in this mysterious remedy?
In 1939, an article in the British Medical Journal suggested corned beef and pickles as a comfort food for those on the edge of seasickness. Maybe pickles are a World War II remedy, because I found this quote in a book called Tales from a Tin Can: the USS Dale from Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay:
“My Amish mom wrote me a letter about my seasickness and said I needed something to sour my stomach. So I made up sandwiches from dill pickles and bread, and lived on them for a few days. It worked. I no longer had any seasickness! My dill pickle sandwiches cured thirty-five other guys on the Dale of their seasickness too!”
~Bluegrass Blue Crab
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