READY TO CUKE IT OUT?

One versatile veggie

We had a small garden when I was growing up and grew delicious cucumbers as well as carrots, tomatoes, green beans and potatoes.

My favourite way to eat the cucumbers was in their freshly picked condition because nothing beats the crunch of a freshly picked and chilled cucumber.

The second way was in a sandwich with delicious, light caraway rye bread, spread with butter and sprinkled with salt.

To reduce the bitterness that these cucumbers purportedly held, my grandmother taught me to slice the bottom end off the cucumber and rub the cut surfaces together which produced a thick white foam.

I don’t know if it’s true that it reduced bitterness.

Maybe it did because I don’t recall ever eating bitter cucumbers. Old wives’ tale or not, I think it’s endearing and I still do it to this day.

She also taught me to put cucumber slices over my eyes as a “beauty” treatment, something I didn’t continue doing, and should perhaps reconsider.

When I was old enough to buy my own cucumbers, I eventually switched to English cucumbers to avoid the tough skinned, spongy, field cukes that were commonly available.

In summer, I’m always happy to find good, earth-grown cucumbers at farmers’ markets, the lemon cucumber being a favourite of mine.

Cucumbers are a great contrast for intensely flavoured foods, I always appreciate the way they calm down my palate when eating southeast Asian, Korean or Indian food.

And sliced, they have long been my vehicle for cheese or pâté instead of crackers or bread.

I’m grateful that cucumber-growing cultures have delicious cucumber salads to round out my meals, and I mean a CUCUMBER salad, not a salad with a few token slices of cucumber to make it more interesting than a pile of lettuce.

They celebrate the cucumber full on. Though the cool, watery crunch of the cucumber is one of its greatest pleasures, it can also work against itself in a dressed salad.

Salting coaxes out the water, so the seasonings don’t end up being diluted when the salad is dressed. Note: For the sake of recipe consistency and the amount of salt vs. cucumber, I’ve used English cucumbers that weighed an average of 14 ounces (400 grams) each.

You can use any sort of cucumber you like and if they are especially seedy, remove the seeds and add a more seeded cucumber to make up the weight.

PHOTOS: KAREN BARNABY Nothing beats a cool cucumber salad in the summer. This Sichuan version lets you turn up the heat by adding a little — or a lot — of chili oil.