Cousin to the Persian melon, the cucumber has been around for at least three thousand years. The plant originated in India, migrated both east to China and west to the Mediterranean and Europe, and discovered America with Columbus, who carried seeds to Haiti in 1494. The Pilgrims planted cukes in their gardens, where they flourished enthusiastically, and the plant was off to a promising new career in North America.
But by the late 1600s, some in England began to worry that eating raw food might lead to illness, and the uncooked cucumber fell from grace. "This day Sir W. Batten tells me that Mr. Newhouse is dead of eating cowcumbers," lamented Samuel Pepys in his famous diary. "Fit only for cows," sniffed another writer.
But you could eat a cooked cucumber and live to tell the tale, especially if you cooked it according to the instructions in Mrs. Raffald's remarkable 1769 cookbook, The Experienced English Housekeeper:
|
To Stew Cucumbers
Peel off the outer rind, slice the cucumbers pretty thick, fry them in fresh butter, and lay them on a sieve to drain. Put them into a tossing pan with a large glass of red wine, the same of strong gravy, a blade or two of mace. Make it pretty thick with flour and butter and when it boils up put in your cucumbers. Keep shaking them and let them boil five minutes, be careful you don't break them. Pour them into a dish and serve them up.
|
There. That ought to be safe enough. But wait! There's another option! You might pickle them, for the pickling process was judged to be enough like cooking to redeem the cucumber from its raw sins. Voila! Pickles became the fad food of the eighteenth century, available in barrels in the coffee shops for snacking on the run.
Cucumbers were in great demand at the local apothecary shop, too, where they were considered an important pharmaceutical herb. The seeds were employed to treat inflammations of the bowel and urinary tract and to expel tapeworms, and the pulp and juice were used to ease skin inflammations and treat sunburns. Even today, beauty consultants in expensive spas often recommend placing cooling, soothing slices of cucumber over tired and inflamed eyes, and cucumbers are served raw (gasp!) in the very best restaurants.
Samuel Pepys would be amazed.
Cucumbers aren't the only things to pickle. Check out the A-Z pickling possibilities (asparagus, beets, cauliflower and more):
|