By Tara Narayan

GOOD LORD, it’s raining cucumbers at Panaji market and I don’t know how I missed it! Too busy looking at other things. Looks like this monsoon there’s a bumper crop of cucumbers, although I realize that the monsoon season is cucumber season in Goa (and ambade and 12-inch long ladies finger and bamboo shoot season). There’re cucumbers everywhere, pale green cucumbers (apple cucumbers?), also dark green cucumbers and very large ones called “chibur” in Konkani but these are more like sweet melons (if they’re yellowish)…no matter, they’re all cucurbits or belong to the pretty Cuburbitaceae familyof veggies which I hope I was waxing eloquent over here last week. Melons, gourds, marrows, squashes, pumpkins, cucumbers…hey, this family of veggies are generally accepted as water or low calorie veggies or fruit, so if you care about such things you should take a second and third look at them. It’s cucumber season, folks, and they’re selling at Rs.10-Rs.16 kg or by individual hefty piece currently…incidentally, it’s also apple season because the expensive imported apples have vanished and the Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh apples have arrived at half the price i.e. Rs.40-Rs.50 per eight to 10 to 12 pieces depending on the size.

Cool curcubit cucumber. . . quite a variety in the market.

In between I got very annoyed with the imported apples because one could never tell which were badly irradiated and I was throwing out two to four apples with every buy at Rs.100 kg i.e. six or seven apples… irradiated fruit is deceptive, looking good on the surface, but brown within and rotten at the core. The least our health authorities can do is insist that all irradiated imported produce is labeled accordingly so that purchasers t can make an informed purchase (it’s a fundamental right in other countries and especially in the countries from where all this produce comes from)…I learned through trial and error that only New Zealand’s “Enza” and “Rose No.4122” apples are worth buying. But they’ve vanished and I’m waiting for the apples from Kinnaur to arrive in the market, they’re the best.

But this is for cucumbers and yes, there’s a variety popularly called apple cucumbers because their colouring is so pale white green and they even have a wee bit of apple-like tang. Like I said it’s raining cucumbers presently in Goa and I don’t know why so many folk think cucumbers are wishy washy. With such a plentiful bounty of cucumbers you’d think there’d be several recipes offering cucumber treats but I could find only one recipe in my Goan cookbooks and that is “Tausalli”! A recipe which calls for grated cucumber, rice flour, jaggery, coconut, etc., and is baked or steamed. Sorry, from the sound of it this tausalli doesn’t excite me (but see box for recipe). But is that all? Goa is a cucumber paradise where cucumbers grow prolifically….

Cucumbers are delicately refreshing in taste and varieties range from the pale, almost pure white lean or fat variety, to the darker green slender versions. Not quite courgettes or zucchini which are gourmet cucumbers and most pricy but they’re denser in texture and cut as smooth as butter, also have a firm, agreeable crunch and therefore ideal cucumbers for sandwiches. You’ll be surprised to know that cucumbers do have nutritive and medicinal value and thanks to the popular perception that they’re salad stuff most of us eat cucumbers in sliced salad and in curd-based raita…though some folk like to cook certain cucumbers like the Mangalore variety where the central seed structure is removed before the flesh is diced or grated and used. In Karnataka I remember eating cucumber dosa (desi savoury pancake) and koosumari (a combo of grated cucumber and well-soaked pounded moong or gram dal, much like Goan ambadeche karam).

Cucumbers like most cucurbits are perfect thirst quenchers and the tradition is to generally eat cucumbers along or after a heavy “meatarian” meal to offset the thirst (which apparently non-vegetarian food inspires!)…anyway cucumbers are also said to make for happier digestion because they’re alkaline and diuretic in nature. Recommended food for high blood pressure, nephritis, cystitis, ascitis…my favourite Dr. Aman in his nutrition bible “Medicinal Secrets of Your Food” fancifully appeals to the imagination by saying that drinking a cupful of cucumber juice with buttermilk (a pinch of salt) everyday “keeps one flower fresh during the entire day”! The good doctor also adds that you may apply cucumber juice to your complexion to improve it. But try not to peel your cucumbers (just give them a good scrubbing if they’re brown with mitti) for cucumber peel is chlorophyll, silicon and trace minerals rich apart from the essential fibre. I wonder if Goan cucumbers are organically grown?

Up north in the Punjab summer times are replete with chaat masala-spiked cucumber raita and cucumber seeds dot many a halva and kheer…cucumber, melon, pumpkin, sunflower seeds are all kinds of good things so buy them in small quantities and use them to garnish soups and salads e.g. garnish pumpkin soup with pumpkin seeds or pumpkin seed crumble! This is just to say eat cucumbers, drink cucumbers, apply cucumbers…incidentally, cucumbers are also recommended food for senior citizens who suffer from the burning feet syndrome or burning eyes.

CUCUMBER HISTORY
IT SEEMS the Jewish people are very fond of cucumbers because the Prophet Isaiah mentions it. The cucumber is said to have come to Europe via Egypt where during the time of the Pharoahs it was seen as cheap food for the Jewish slave labour. It was first heard of in Britain in the 14 th century but started getting rave notices by the 16 th century. Cucumber sandwiches became the rage, you must know how famous English cucumber sandwiches are for tea! The perfect English cucumber sandwich comes wafer thin…fresh white or brown bread slices, nicely trimmed, buttered (salted and peppered or mustered butter), lettuce leaves and thinly sliced cucumber slices as the centerpiece…delivering the perfect English cucumber sandwich of Victorian times was an art form and I dare say the tastiest morsels of sandwiches going, I love them and can eat them by the dozen (although I like my cucumber slices more substantially sliced)! The inclusion of such things as fresh green coriander leaf chutney, thinly sliced celery, also thinly sliced tofu slices, a hint of mango chutney or cheddar cheese…makes for a superlative cucumber sandwich, although hard to hang on to (the basic cucumber sandwich being a delicate affair).

Interestingly, in the cucumber’s early English history it was called “cowcumber”, it got a bit cumbersome so they dropped the cow bit and made it cucumber. An amusing story goes that George Stephenson (of steam locomotive fame) was fond of cucumbers and took to growing them as a hobby in his garden, but he got fed-up of the oddly shaped cucumbers he got. So he invented straight-jacket glasses to grow his stubborn cucumbers…and what do you know, the cucumbers learned to grow straight forever after! Other cucumber growers followed suit and presumably cucumbers became well-mannered after that or so speak.

Okay, enough cucumber talk for now. Viva cucumbers!

POSTSCRIPT: If you’re looking for good tofu, place your orders at Farm Products (at Azad maidan). It’s the only place which stocks Lisa Camps’ tofu and it gets over fast. The American Lisa is as keen on promoting soybean products as I am, although for her it’s a business of course and she has her own small-scale factory making and supplying soymilk, tofu, tempeh, etc., to various restaurants which do tofu cooking. But I think it’s a vast pity that only a few restaurants have learned how to replace paneer with tofu. Farm Products is one of those interesting little old-world cold storages where any number of foodie stuff may catch one’s attention. Worth dropping in.

Back