Salad Favorite Cucumber Once Prized as Fertility Charm

A member of the same plant family as melons, pumpkins and winter squash, cucumbers have been cultivated for many centuries. The first record of the cucumber was in Mesopotamia around 2000 B.C. in the earliest known vegetable garden, and cucumbers were known to have been grown in India 1,000 years later.

First century A.D.  Romans cultivated cucumbers in baskets or raised beds mounted on wheels so they could be moved around “as the sun moves around the heavens”. When the day cooled they were moved back under frames glazed with oiled cloth known as specularia. Ruler Tiberius found them tasty and was said to have eaten them every day.

Early varieties of cucumber were quite bitter and were boiled with oil, vinegar and honey. They were a common ingredient in soups, stews and as a cooked vegetable until the 19^th century. The 18^th century English recipes include cucumbers stuffed with partly cooked pigeons (with head and feathers left on). The whole was then cooked in broth and the heads garnished with barberries.

Columbus introduced cucumbers to the new world. Cucumbers were recorded being planted in Haiti in 1494 and grown by English settlers in Virginia in 1609.

Today cucumbers are used primarily in salads. Commercially cucumbers are used to make pickles and relishes.

Low in calories, cucumbers have moderate amounts of potassium and small amounts of beta carotene which are mostly in the skin of the cucumber which is typically peeled and discarded. Cucumber juice contains some alpha hydroxy acids which improve the effectiveness of facial masks and other cosmetic products.

Cucumbers were used by the Romans against scorpion bites, bad eyesight, and to scare away mice. Among the most notable folklore concerning cucumbers, wives wishing for children wore cucumbers tied around their waists, and they were carried by midwives and thrown away once the child was born.