Four sizes of whole cornichons laid in a row from smallest to largest on a pale stoneware plate, beside a small heap of yellow mustard seeds, a pearl onion and a sprig of tarragon

How to Buy Cornichons: The Grade Is a Number

The grade of a cornichon is a number, not a word, and on one catering tin it is inked on the lid. Cornichons are sold in a French vocabulary that sounds like a ranking, extra-fins above très fins above fins, and is really a count per kilogram that the trade sheets print. The origin line can name the country where the vinegar was poured rather than the field where the cucumber grew, and about 80 percent of the cornichons eaten in France are grown in India. The vinegar is defined by a French decree, the sulfites by two allergen rules, the drained weight by a European annex. This is the jar read from the name at the top to the ink on the lid, with a sum for the price of one cornichon and a jar for each plate. The guide to what a cornichon is covers the vegetable, and the guide to how cornichons are grown and picked covers the field. This one covers the moment of purchase.

The name

Start with the word on the front. The international standard for pickled cucumbers, Codex Standard 115, allows the product to be called pickled cucumbers, cucumber pickles, pickles or gherkins, and notes that in some countries cucumber means the large fruit and gherkin, cornichon in French, means the small one. It also sets a size line for the name: a whole pickle may be designated gherkin only when it is no wider than 27 millimeters. An American jar that says pickles is, by default, a cucumber pickle of any size in a dill or sour or sweet brine. A French jar that says cornichons is a very small cucumber in vinegar with onion, mustard seed and often tarragon, and it is the one the French trade sells by calibre.

Two more words can sit beside the name. Malossol names a cornichon prepared with less salt; Maison Marc's is made with dill, garlic and bay, and Les Producteurs de Caractère lists it as the largest calibre in the house's range. Aigre-doux names the sweet-sour version, which under Codex is its own sub-type with a floor on soluble solids. Neither is a grade. They are recipes, and the recipe is the second thing to read after the size.

The calibre, which is the only grade

French cornichons are graded by calibre, and the calibre is the number of cornichons in a kilogram. A higher number means a smaller cornichon. The trade sheets are explicit: a Hugo Reitzel foodservice tin is specified at 80 to 119 cornichons per kilogram, a Toquelia tin at 120 to 149, Maille's foodservice extra-fins at 150 to 299, and Reitzel sells a 60 to 79 calibre, a larger size the trade sheets steer toward sauces. The words attached to those numbers drift from one seller to the next. The 150 to 299 calibre is extra-fins on Maille's sheet. The 120/149 calibre is très fins on one distributor's sheet and fins in another's listing. The Reitzel 80/119 sheet attaches no word at all. The number does not drift, which is why the trade prints it, and why a retail jar that prints only the word is the harder read.

The calibre converts directly into what arrives on the plate. A kilogram divided by 150 is under seven grams per cornichon, the size of the last joint of a little finger. A kilogram divided by 60 is nearly seventeen grams, a cornichon the length of a thumb. The table runs the numbers, attaches the French words where a seller prints one, and counts how many land in a jar with 210 grams of drained cornichons, the drained weight on Reitzel's French-grown retail jar.

Calibre (per kg) Grams each French word on the jar In a 210 g drained jar
150 to 299 Under 6.7 g Extra-fins 31 or more
120 to 149 6.7 to 8.3 g Très fins, or fins 25 to 31
80 to 119 8.4 to 12.5 g Fins on some trade sheets; none on Reitzel's 17 to 25
60 to 79 12.7 to 16.7 g Mi-fins on some trade sheets; often the number alone 13 to 17

The American standard sizes whole pickles by diameter, with an approximate count per gallon for each size, in classes that run petite, small gherkin and large gherkin before reaching small. Petite was midget until 2019, when the Department of Agriculture replaced the word after a petition from Little People of America. Neither system uses the French size words. The trap is reading fin as a quality claim. It is a size, and a jar at 80 per kilogram and a jar at 150 are different sizes for different jobs. The trade sheets put the smaller ones on the plate whole and steer the larger ones toward sauces.

The origin line

Reports in 2017, 2022 and 2026 put the share of cornichons eaten in France that are grown in India at about 80 percent, with much of the remainder from eastern Europe. Two numbers explain it: the monsoon climate allows three harvests a year in India against one in France, and Indian cornichons reached the French factory at about one euro a kilogram against five or six for French-grown. Much of the Indian crop is shipped to France in barrels and jarred there. The technical sheet for the Reitzel 80/119 tin puts it plainly: origin France, place of last processing, above a raw-material line that reads India, Sri Lanka, Serbia, EU, Bosnia, Macedonia and Albania. A tricolor on the lid is not a lie. It is the vinegar's passport.

Two European rules govern the origin line. The general food information regulation requires an origin only where leaving it off would mislead, so a jar need not carry one. Since April 2020, an implementing regulation adds that where a food states its origin and the primary ingredient comes from somewhere else, the label must say where the ingredient is from, or at least that it is not from the stated country, and it may do so with nothing more specific than the words EU or non-EU. The line to read is the one beside the cucumber in the ingredient list.

French-grown cornichons exist, and their labels say so at length. Reitzel was jarring French-grown cornichons under the Jardin d'Orante label by 2016, about 110,000 jars that year, and France 24 reported five growers signed by 2017. Reitzel's French-grown retail jar, the French gherkin with vinegar and shallot, reads French gherkins 49 percent, with the percentage because a named ingredient must carry its quantity. Maison Marc in Chemilly-sur-Yonne grows, picks by hand and jars its own cornichons in Burgundy, and says so. The words that point to a French field are cultivé en France, récolté en France, or a named village, in the ingredient list or beside it. Fabriqué en France, conditionné en France and produit de France point only to a French factory.

The vinegar

Next comes the vinegar. The Reitzel sheet gives spirit vinegar, vinaigre d'alcool, at 17 percent of the tin, behind cornichons at 48 and water at 29. French law reserves the word vinegar for a product made by double fermentation, alcoholic and then acetic, sets a floor of five grams of acetic acid per hundred milliliters, six for wine vinegar, and forbids calling a blend of vinegar and food-grade acetic acid by the name. So a French label that says vinaigre means fermented vinegar. A label from elsewhere that says acidifier, acetic acid, or water and acetic acid, is using the chemical directly, which Codex permits. The complete vinegar guide covers the difference.

Codex sorts the whole family by what is in the liquid after the jar has equalized. A sour pickle runs 0.7 to 3.5 percent acidity as acetic acid and 1 to 5 percent salt. A sweet-sour pickle has 1.5 to under 14 percent salt-free soluble solids and a sweet one 14 percent or more, and both have a lower acidity ceiling than a sour pickle. The Reitzel sheet lands the classic cornichon at 1.9 to 2.9 percent acid, 1.9 to 2.9 percent salt and a pH of 4.0, which falls within the standard's ranges for a sour pickle and which the sheet calls acidulée. A jar that says aigre-doux is a different sub-type.

The small print

Four more lines in the ingredient list carry their own rules. Sulfites come in with the cucumber. The Reitzel declaration reads cornichons, with preservative potassium metabisulfite, and the sheet caps sulfites under 100 milligrams per kilogram, which is the European limit for vegetables in vinegar. European rules require sulfites to be declared above 10 milligrams per kilogram and American rules at 10 or more, so a jar that says contains sulfites has crossed that line. Calcium chloride, listed as firming agent, is a calcium salt added to keep the cornichon firm. Codex allows it to 250 milligrams per kilogram and the French-grown Reitzel jar uses it. Colors are permitted by Codex, including riboflavin, copper chlorophyll, tartrazine and Sunset Yellow, and an American jar that uses tartrazine must say FD&C Yellow No. 5 in the list. The vegetable garnish, the pearl onions above all, is capped by Codex at 5 percent of the product's weight, except in the mustard sub-type, which allows 30. Herbs and spices are not capped.

The last line to read is natural flavoring, arôme naturel. The Reitzel sheet lists it at five hundredths of a percent. It is neither a fault nor a grade.

The weight and the sum

European labeling rules require a drained net weight whenever a solid food sits in a listed liquid medium, and vinegar is on the list, so every French jar prints two weights and the second is the one to price. The ratio barely moves. The Reitzel 80/119 tin holds 2,120 grams drained in 4,100 net, the Toquelia tin 2,120 in 4,000, and the French-grown Reitzel retail jar 210 in 390. That is 52 to 54 percent cornichon by weight. Codex's minimum fill for a fresh-pack whole pickle happens to be the same number, 53 percent, though Codex measures it as a share of the container's volume, not of the net weight. For a jar without a drained weight, half the net weight is a working estimate. American jars print the net weight with the brine in and may leave the drained weight off.

Jars run from 200 grams net to 340 and more, so the fair comparison is price per drained gram and the useful one is price per cornichon. The table uses illustrative prices, not shop prices, takes drained weight at 53 percent where the jar does not print one, and counts cornichons from the calibre.

Jar Net Drained, about Illustrative price Per drained gram Cornichons, from the calibre Per cornichon
Supermarket sweet gherkins, no calibre 340 g 180 g $3.50 1.9 cents Not graded Not knowable
French brand, Indian-grown, extra-fins 150+ 220 g 117 g $5.50 4.7 cents 17 or more About 32 cents
French-grown extra-fins 150+ 200 g 105 g $10.00 9.5 cents 16 or more About 62 cents

At these illustrative prices the French field costs about twice the Indian field per drained gram and about 30 cents more per cornichon. The second figure is the useful one, because a cornichon is eaten one at a time beside a slice of pâté. A cornichon at 60/79 weighs two to three times as much as an extra-fin and the trade sheets steer it toward sauces, so its count per jar says less about how many plates it feeds.

The date and the lid

The Reitzel sheet gives a best-before of four years at room temperature before opening, and the Toquelia sheet a total shelf life of 720 days. The more useful print is the ink on the lid. The Reitzel tin is coded with the best-before date, the production year, the hour, and the calibre, so a lid that reads 80-119 carries the grade. A lid that domes, a seal that has lifted, or a brine that has turned turbid rather than faintly hazy cancels every other line.

The words that are law and the words that are custom

Word on the jar Status What it tells you
150+, 120/149, 80/119, 60/79 Trade grade, and the only one Cornichons per kilogram; the size, and with it the job
Extra-fins, très fins, fins, mi-fins Custom, not law A size word whose calibre shifts by seller; on Maille's sheet extra-fins is 150 to 299
Gherkin, cornichon Real under Codex A whole pickle no wider than 27 mm
Malossol, aigre-doux, à l'aneth A recipe Less salt, and the largest calibre in Maison Marc's range; sweet-sour; dill. Not a grade
Poids net égoutté, drained weight Law in Europe The cornichons without the brine; the basis for a fair price comparison
Vinaigre, vinaigre d'alcool, vinaigre de vin Law in France Fermented vinegar; a blend with acetic acid may not use the word
Acidifier: acetic acid Legal The chemical without the fermentation
Cornichons 49%, gherkins 48% Law when the ingredient is in the name The share of the jar that is cucumber
Contains sulfites, dont sulfites Law above 10 mg/kg in the EU, at 10 or more in the US Sulfites crossed the declaration line; capped at 100 mg/kg for vegetables in vinegar in the EU
Firming agent: calcium chloride Legal, capped by Codex A calcium salt that keeps the cornichon firm; Codex caps it at 250 mg/kg
FD&C Yellow No. 5, E102, colour Must be declared A color was added
Cultivé en France, récolté en France, a named village A producer's origin claim Points to a French field
Gherkins, non-EU Law since April 2020 where an origin is stated and the cucumber is from elsewhere The cucumber was grown outside the EU
Fabriqué en France, conditionné en France, produit de France Processing country Points only to a French factory, not to where the cucumber grew
Cueillis à la main, hand-picked A producer's harvest claim How the cornichons were picked; Maison Marc states it
Croquant, crunchy, extra-crisp Unregulated as a label word Codex's quality criteria already call for reasonably firm, crisp cucumbers
Premium, gourmet, sélection, artisanal Unregulated A description, not a calibre

Which jar for which plate

For the charcuterie board, the raclette, the pâté and the cheese course, buy the smallest calibre and eat them whole. Edmond Fallot cornichons extra-fins (shop Edmond Fallot cornichons extra-fins) are extra-fine cornichons in vinegar with pearl onions and tarragon, from the Beaune mustard house covered in the Dijon mustard guide. They belong beside Fallot Dijon mustard (shop Fallot Dijon mustard) on the board the cheese-course accompaniments guide sets, and beside a tin of sardines from the Brittany sardines guide at the table the snack dinner guide lays out.

For the plate where the cornichon is the vegetable rather than the punctuation, buy the large calibre and the less salty brine. Maison Marc malossol cornichons (shop Maison Marc malossol cornichons) are the Burgundy-grown jar in dill, garlic and bay, the largest calibre the house makes, to slice onto buttered bread or dice into a sauce. For the American dill idiom, Pacific Pickle Works kosher baby dills (shop Pacific Pickle Works baby dills) are pickles by the American name, for the plate beside a sandwich. The shelf-by-shelf pantry storage guide says where an opened jar lives.

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