SC - Cucumbers: Recipe & Question

[KallipygosRed at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/5/00 8:00:27 AM US Mountain Standard Time, 
jdmiller2 at students.wisc.edu writes:


> My grandmother makes this too. You basically slice cucumbers (I like them
> thin), add sour cream and thin it with milk to the consistency you wish.
> Season with salt, pepper, dill, and a touch of sugar.  Sometimes she added
> celery seed.  We got this just about every time we visited, especially in
> the summer.
> 
> No idea if it is period, but I doubt it.  :-(
> 
> --Yana
> 

They serve something similiar in Iran today, after meals, to help with the 
digestian. I was told while there that it is an Armenian dish, and older than 
Moses in use. They used goats milk, curdled slightly to the consistency of 
yogurt, and the celery was not the seed but the pulped up celery, with slices 
of cukes floating. Sometimes they changed the dish to be sweetier by useing 
mint leaves ground into the dish. Salt and Pepper were provided for your own 
taste. They also served this dish without the cucumbers, as a side dish, with 
onions grated into the yogurt and salt and pepper added to it. This, I 
remember, they called Maast. Much more savory taste.

Could your grandmother have come from a strongly Armenian background, or 
neighborhood, as a child? If so, you might be able to find a similiar dish in 
an ethnic cookbook of same. And that might also be a good place to start the 
search for tracking down something similiar from period.

Lars