C is for Cucumbers

These English cucumbers actually have Asian origins.

Yesterday, I said that I was going to talk about a vegetable today--or maybe not. Cucumbers fit that bill since they are one of those items of produce that can be considered a fruit or a vegetable depending if you use a botanical or food use definition. But did you know that by law, cucumbers are vegetables? That's based on a Supreme Court decision in the Nix vs Hedden case in 1893 involving the Tariff Act of 1883 which placed a tax on imported vegetables but not fruits. The case focused on tomatoes and whether they were a fruit or vegetable. The court decided that the common use of the tomato as a vegetable would be the definition for the tariffs not the botanical definition. They also clarified the standing for cucumbers, beans, squash, and peas as vegetables. (Are peas and beans seeds or vegetables?)

And since I was on the subject of cucumbers, I decided to see if I could clarify the whole burping subject. It turns out that the naturally occurring, bitter chemical cucurbitacin in cucumbers is the culprit. Cucurbitacin causes stomach distress in animals to serve as a deterrent from being eaten before it has time to produce seeds. Over the years, cucumbers have been bred to contain less cucurbitacin and be milder tasting and friendlier to the digestive tract. Cucumbers advertised as burpless produce less cucurbitacin especially during hot and dry weather when production of it increases. (Note to self: Make sure to water cucumber plants when it is hot and dry.) Also, cucurbitacin tends to concentrate in the ends, so cutting them off may help with the bitter taste.

One last thing for this cucumber post, below I've copied a post I did a couple of years ago about cucumber soup. Soon the cucumbers will be everywhere and this might be a way to use some of them up. Enjoy.

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Cucumber Soup

Sunday I posted about cucumbers I had been given and the the cold soup I made from them. Anne at Cooking and All that Jazz asked for the recipe. I almost decided that the posting could wait for another day when I wasn't so wrung out from the heat. But there's not a break in the weather in the foreseeable future, so now is as good of a time as tomorrow or the next day, or the next day.  Too bad my husband finished the rest of the soup, because some cool cucumber soup would hit the spot right now. And I would have had a picture for you.  Oh, well. It was very easy, so I'll make some more. Here's the original recipe that came from Epicurious.com. I've cut and pasted so spacing, etc. may look a little wonky.

YIELD

 

Serves 6

INGREDIENTS

1. • 5 cucumbers
   • 1/2 cup chopped parsley
   • 6 scallions, chopped
   • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
   • 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
   • 1 quart buttermilk
   • 1 pint yogurt
   • Salt and freshly ground pepper

   • PREPARATION

     1. 1. Peel cucumbers and cut them in half, scraping out seeds. Sprinkle the cucumbers with salt and let them stand 30 minutes. Drain excess water.
        2. Chop the cucumbers coarsely and put the pieces in the blender along with scallions, dill, lemon juice, buttermilk, and yogurt. Blend at high speed. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Chill well before serving.

My sister gave me this recipe. She and I both modified it with the these results. 

She used two small onions instead of 6 scallions. This had little effect on the taste, but the green tops were not there to add color. She left out all of the parsley. That did change the taste of the soup, but it did not suffer. It was just different. She used 7 oz of Greek yogurt instead of 1 pint of plain yogurt. These are roughly equivalent and didn't change things much. She did not add the whole quart of buttermilk.  She only added about 1 1/2 pints of buttermilk because she thought the soup was already too thin. Her version was very good and was both refreshing and filling at the same time.

I changed a few things, also. My husband doesn't like onions, so I left out the scallions/onions altogether. However, I did add in all of the parsley. The parsley was pretty strongly flavored so it more than made up for the lack of the onion. In fact, I may add just a bit less next time I make it. It did add a nice light green color to the soup. I also did not add all of the buttermilk. I think that would have cut down on the cucumber taste too much and made the soup too thin.

My sister used her food processor to blend things and I used my blender. Both worked well.

I think this would be a fairly forgiving recipe to tweak with what you have or what you like.

I do know that I am going to make some again very soon. As soon as I get more cucumbers.