[Sca-cooks] An almost final Feast Menu

[Terry Decker]

Cucumber (Cucumis sativus) is an Old World member of the Cucurbitacaea.  The 
German recipe you remember is likely oil, vinegar, salt and sugar.

For a period recipe, you might give this recipe a try:

Cucumber Salad

Peel the Cucumbers/and cut them broad and thin/ season them with oil/ pepper 
and salt.  But if
they are salt-preserved/they are also not bad/ are better than raw because 
one can salt it with
Fennel and with caraway that both can be kept over one year. And near the 
Rhine-stream one
calls it Cucummern

Rumpolt, Ein Neue Kochbuch, 1581

1 cucumber
1/8-1/4 C oil (olive)
Salt and pepper

Peel cucumber and slice thinly into rounds, drizzle with oil and sprinkle 
with salt and pepper,
toss to coat

I can't really tell you how they taste.  Raw cucumber gives me indigestion, 
so I avoid it.  However, a number of the people who tried it liked it.

Bear

> OK-I am blushing. <grin>
>
> I thought Cukes were New World?
>
> I remember  when I was in Germany, I ate a cucumber salad that did not 
> taste like cucumbers. The lady I was staying with had peeled them, sliced 
> them and then dressed them in a marinade that took out that bitter bite. I 
> asked her to please teach me how to make that, but all I got was a little 
> smile and a blush.
> I would LOVE to replicate that dressing.
>
> But-practically everything I am serving, except for the last course, can 
> be documented. How would I justify Cucumbers?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Helen