Pickles and Brine Are Gen Z’s Avocado on The Viral List

Gen Z loves eating savory, briny snacks—and wearing them  Millennials were notorious (and let’s be honest ridiculed) for their love of avocados in fast casual food or brunch pics. Now, Gen Z is having their very own “pick-me” snack moment—one that somehow signals being a little special in their tastes. For the younger gen, pickles, olives, sardines, caviar, and all things fit for the savory section of a charcuterie board are the trendiest snacks to enjoy. Foodie creators who share recipes, drinks, or designs with these ingredients rack up hundreds of thousands or millions of followers. Some include @cookingwithhollyb (299K followers on TikTok), who’s known for making the “dirtiest bevs known to man,” a.k.a. extra-briney martinis and @iz_eats (1.1M followers on TikTok), who makes her own pickles and is even calling her newborn “baby pickle.”  There is something unique about these new “it-ingredients” that separate them from when Millennials made avocados Instagrammable. Things like pickles and olives are typically cheap, and at a time when a packed grocery cart...