Pecks of Pickled Peppers

April 30, 2008 – 12:15 am

We all know the tongue twister: "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?" But not a lot of people know the answer, which is: "it depends."

A peck is not a count, like a dozen. It's a unit of volume. A peck is a quarter of a bushel, or 2 dry gallons, or 8 dry quarts. You might have noticed that I used the word "dry" to describe those gallons and quarts. That's because a dry quart is different than a fluid quart. It's bigger. A fluid quart is 32 fluid ounces, but a dry quart is actually equal to 37.2371 fluid ounces or 1.16366 fluid quarts. Rounding to the nearest hundredth of a quart, that means a peck is 9.31 quarts.

So, how many pickled peppers are in 9.31 quarts? I decided to find out. I picked up three kinds of peppers—two pickled, one unpickled—and a one quart dry measure (a cup that holds exactly one quart) and started packing peppers.

Mini Sweet Peppers:

The first peppers I counted were fresh mini sweet peppers. Slightly crisp, slightly rubbery, like sweet bell peppers in flavor and texture, these would be great to pickle. But for fun, I decided to measure them fresh.

I pressed them down to make sure I fit the maximum amount in, but tried to make sure I didn't crush or mash them in the process. In this case, because these were both fresh and resilient, plus they were the largest peppers of the bunch, we got the fewest in the count, just 15. Multiplying by 9.31 and rounding down to the nearest pepper... If Peter Piper picked a peck of fresh mini sweet peppers, he'd have picked 139 peppers.

Pepperoncini:

Also known as banana peppers or Greek peppers, this is a tangy pepper with enough heat to be fun, but not so much it kills your tastebuds. Some pizza places give you a few with a pizza, and you can get sliced pepperoncini on your sandwich at most sandwich shops. They're one of the most common pickled peppers you'll find and one of my favorite to eat all by themselves.

Because of their slightly smaller size and the fact that the pickling has made their flesh more pliable, I was able to fit 49 peppers into the quart measure, pushing them down to make room, but not mashing them. So if Peter Piper picked a peck of pepperoncini, he'd have picked 456 pickled peppers.

Pickled Jalapenos:

If the pepperoncini isn't the most common pickled pepper there is, then pickled jalapenos are a strong contender for the title. Used in Mexican food and eaten just by themselves as a fun nibble, these are the hottest of our three peppers.

These peppers proved the most compactable and I was able to fit 53 of them into the dry measure. So if Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled jalapeno peppers, he'd have picked 493 pickled peppers.

Some Other Pecks:

Now that we know that a peck is just a measure of volume equal to approximately 298 ounces, 8,810 milliliters, or 537.6 cubic inches (.31 cubic feet), we can start coming up with some fun Rough Equivalents.

• An Olympic sized pool that holds 2500 cubic meters of water, would hold 139,902,607 pickled jalapenos (283,778.10822 pecks).
• If Peter Piper picked a peck of Pepto at drugstore.com, it would cost him $123.92 (based on $6.79 for a 16 ounce bottle of regular strength Pepto Bismol).
• If Peter Piper picked a peck of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, it would weigh roughly 18 pounds and 2 ounces.
• If Peter Piper picked a peck of lard, it would contain 70,480 food calories, which is roughly equal to the energy in 2.44 gallons of gasoline.

What Rough Equivalents can you come up with for a peck?