T he disappearance of the Strub’s pickle brand from retail stores in the past year was the result of Quebec-based owner Whyte’s Foods going into receivership last October—putting a Jewish legacy in limbo, and not for the first time. A cucumber-dunking legacy that began in a backyard near Hamilton in 1929 draws from a family recipe brought over from Russia, courtesy of the great-great-grand- mother of Toronto visual artist Jonah Strub. “We always had an entire fridge of Strub’s at home,” he recalls, “and that’s what my family would bring to a party instead of a bottle of wine.” The business was sold off in 2008, then rescued in 2012 by Whyte’s, a company founded by Montreal couple Sam and Esther Witenoff in 1936 and whose own factory fortunes have now soured. Soon after Strub’s was sold to Whyte’s, Jonah’s uncle started an independent be- spoke dill business under the name Mar- ty’s Pickles as one way of maintaining the family legacy. His 27-year-old nephew is taking a different approach. During an art- ist residency at the Banff Centre last year, Jonah imagined his own drag queen alter ego, Loxanne Creamcheese, embodying Jewish foods through glazed stoneware and fake eyelashes, and opted for the one syn- onymous with his surname. The name of the piece? Dressed to the Brines. n The Return of the Strub
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