Posted on: Wednesday, September 21, 2005
TASTE
Cool cukes
By Ronnie Fein
Stamford (Conn.) Advocate
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Thirst-quenching fruit a refreshing flavor in tea sandwiches, soups or yogurt dips.
Photos by GREGORY YAMAMOTO | The Honolulu Advertiser
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COMMON CUCUMBER Common or garden cucumbers ripen to a yellow tinge in the warm temperatures of late summer. These are the most common and generally least expensive cucumbers, with a pleasant, well-balanced flavor. Their main drawback is a wide band of seeds and a watery tendency. JAPANESE CUCUMBER Japanese cucumbers, easy to find in Hawai'i, have very mild flavor, less water and significantly fewer seeds than garden cucumbers. KOREAN CUCUMBER Korean cucumbers, found in Korean markets such as Queen's Market, are all but seedless and extremely crisp, but can be almost tasteless. Good for pickling and for salads with assertive dressings. |
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Many people like to remove the seeds from cucumbers because they don't care for the texture and because the seeds can cause digestive upset. A melon baller or the end of an oval spoon can be used for this — just dig in at one end and scrape down the center.
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Cucumbers don't get much respect. More glamorous produce like fiddlehead ferns and maitake mushrooms are given premium placement.
But if this fruit that we eat as a vegetable isn't particularly sophisticated, it is cool. Very cool. The flesh is 96 percent water, so it quenches thirst. Cucumbers are perfect for warm weather.
This gourd cousin is native to India, where the weather can be brutally hot, and popular throughout the Middle East and other countries where temperatures soar. In the Bible we read that the Hebrew slaves who built the pharaoh's pyramids were given cucumbers, no doubt to stave off the effects of the sun, and that during the Exodus across the desert the refugees yearned for some: "We remember the ... cucumbers ... but now our strength is dried up and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at." (Numbers 11:5-6.)
