Piccadilly circus

Sour-sweet-salty treat floods the rez

WINDOW ROCK

Until about six months ago, if you heard the word “piccadilly,” you probably thought of London.

Now everybody knows what it is. You can buy it from every street corner between Tuba City and Counselor, and, heck, you’re probably eating one right now.

For those who have been living under a rock, piccadilly is the latest craze to sweep the rez. It’s a slush or snow cone mixed with chunks of dill pickle, sprinkled with dry Kool-Aid, and, if you like, topped with gummi worms, Pop Rocks, or any number of other super-gross candies.

The taste can best be described as an acid trip for your mouth.

“It sounds weird,” conceded Ricardo Lee, who sells piccadilly in Window Rock, Sheep Springs and out of his home in Navajo, New Mexico, with his partner Mariah Jim. “But once people try it, they love it so much they have to have one every day.”

Oddly, while piccadilly is all over the rez, you can step 10 feet off of Diné Bikéyah and not see it at all. “It is a Navajo thing,” said Deanna Garcia, who had stopped with her friend, Sandra Fouser, for one of Lee’s creations. “Navajos love sweet stuff and love pickles, so someone was smart enough to put them together.”

“Kind of like Reese’s (chocolate and peanut butter candies),” agreed Lee.

Where did this weirdly popular creation blow in from? “I heard a pregnant woman in Tuba City came up with it,” said Lee, “but then I also heard it came up from the Apache rez.”

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