Midlife guide to…

pickle bouquets

It’s almost Valentine’s Day, and romantics across the world are hunting down gifts for their significant other. But alongside the classic combination of red roses, chocolates and traditional flower bouquets, another potential gift has now been thrown into Cupid’s mix: the pickle bouquet.

Mixed with garlic, peppers and fresh dill, pickle bouquets are the brainchild of Boston store Grillo’s Pickles, and is no doubt aimed at the US city’s large millennial population. The hipster-bearded owner Travis Grillo claims that pickles are “more beautiful than a dozen red roses, and healthier than a standard box of chocolates – it’s also far more creative”. His bouquets, which sell for $44.99 (£34.75), also feature cucumber and tomatoes.

It might sound like a publicity stunt, but pickles are just one example of a range of, shall we say, “unconventional” bouquets sweeping the Valentine’s Day market this year.

You can now buy a “back to nature” bouquet made of pine cones and dried grass, as well as an edible “vegan bouquet” comprised of fruit and vegetables.

Those cool social innovators who haven’t yet made the plunge into veganism can also buy “meat bouquets”, filled with salami, chorizo and pigs-in-blankets. Meat posies created by London “cuisinartists” Bompas & Parr even come with hung pheasant and partridge.

It’s easy to dismiss the pickle bouquet as exactly the sort of shallow, pretentious fad that we have all come to expect from hipsters. But we should remind ourselves of the origins of Valentine’s Day in ancient Rome, when St Valentine is said to have broken Roman laws to conduct secret Christian marriages. It was an unconventional practice that looked utterly bizarre to most of the public. Perhaps St Valentine was the hipster of his age, and today’s young romantics are following dutifully in his wake?

In centuries to come, pickles could well be the gift of choice every February. Assuming that they haven’t gone off, that is.