Ozu reference to jealousy & pickles

[Frako Loden]

Even my Japanese mother can't answer this one! In Ozu's 1949 
"Banshun" (Late Spring), the Hara Setsuko character says that she's 
the jealous type--after all, when she slices pickles (takuan), they 
stay strung together, i.e. she doesn't slice them all the way 
through. She flirts with a man in the film twice with this 
information. Can anybody explain to me how semisliced pickles would 
relate to jealousy?

Frako Loden