According to my source, drinking copious amounts of pickle juice will not only cure hiccups, but will make that person overall more healthful. She first heard this as a young girl from a friend, who explained that pickle juice would cure her hiccups when she had one. One day when she had hiccups, she opened her fridge, and to her mom’s dismay began drinking the pickling juice straight out of the jar of pickles, miraculously curing her hiccups. This notion that was spread to her was not explained but was simply taken at face value, and for her it seemed to work. It was yet another folk remedy that she continued to spread to her own friends when they had hiccups, most of who were disgusted with the thought of drinking the supposedly sour, salty fluid.

This particular folk belief is particularly comical in my eyes. I was always given a spoonful of sugar to cure my hiccups, but perhaps it is the same mechanisms behind both folk remedies that lead to the cure of hiccups. What I find the most interesting about this folk remedy is the fact that she finds it difficult to recall a time in which the cure failed to work, but only remembers when the cure does work. Folk beliefs seem to be notions that people enjoy believing in despite how effective they really are, and will continue to be spread so long as such people carry their beliefs so strongly.