The New Complete Book of Food
picks up when the cucumber is waxed to keep it from losing moisture during shipping and
storage. The wax is edible, but some people prefer not to eat it, which means missing out on
fiber. To get your cucumbers without wax, ask for pickling cucumbers, and note the difference
in color and texture.
Choose cucumbers with a clean break at the stem end; a torn, uneven stem end means
that the cucumber was pulled off the vine before it was ready. Technically, all the cucum-
bers we buy are immature; truly ripe cucumbers have very large, hard seeds that make the
vegetable unpalatable.
Avoid: Cucumbers with yellowing skin; the vegetable is so old that its chlorophyll pigments
have faded and the carotenes underneath are showing through. Puffy, soft cucumbers are
also past their prime.Storing This Food
Store cucumbers in the refrigerator and use them as soon as possible. The cucumber has no
starch to convert to sugar as it ages, so it won’t get sweeter off the vine, but it will get softer
as the pectins in its cell wall absorb water. You can make a soft cucumber crisp again by slic-
ing it and soaking the slices in salted water. By osmotic action, the unsalted, lower-density
water in the cucumber’s cells will flow out across the cell walls out into the higher-density
salted water and the cucumber will feel snappier.Preparing This Food
Rinse the cucumber under cold, running water. Check to see if the cucumber has been waxed
by scraping the skin gently with the tip of your fingernail and then looking for waxy resi-
due under the nail. If the skin is waxed, you can peel it off—but not until you are ready to
use it, since slicing the cucumber tears its cell walls, releasing an enzyme that oxidizes and
destroys vitamin C.What Happens When You Cook This Food
* * *How Other Kinds of Processing Affect This Food
Pickling. Cucumbers are not a good source of iron, but pickles may be. If processed in iron
vats, the pickles have picked up iron and will give you about 1 mg per pickle. Pickles made in
stainless steel vats have no iron, nor do pickles made at home in glass or earthenware.Medical Uses and/or Benefits
* * *