Friday, July 16, 2010

A Cucumber by Any Other Name...


Another summertime pleasure of mine is the "Scopatizzo Barese" cucumber, native to the area of southern Italy I live in. It's kind of like a cucumber and kind of like a melon. In fact, its scientific name is Cucumis Melo, or cucumber melon. Imagine a cucumber, but slightly sweeter, more compact and crunchier.

It has a furry skin that you can peel off, but many people just wash it to minimize the fuzz and then eat the whole thing. I don't mind eating the skin, but I draw the line at the seeds. There are more of them and they are larger than your average cucumber seed.


Prepare it the same way you would a cucumber. It is so cool and refreshing that I think cooking it would be a pity. My favorite recipe is to simply eliminate the seeds, peel and chop it and serve either alone or with fresh, chopped tomatoes, dressed with a pinch of salt and some extra-virgin olive oil.
The taste of summer!

10 comments:

heather@actingbalanced.com said...

looks so yummy! I love the varieties of cucumbers I can get here in north america, but this one looks cool!
thanks for following and entering my giveaway

h.

Anonymous said...

I never heard of such a cucumber and will be looking for it in our Italian specialty market.

LindyLouMac said...

Well I have never seen one of those on the market here. Will have to look closer!

Saretta said...

Varieties of cucumbers? Who knew? I've lived sheltered life vegetably speaking! ;-)

I know these exist in the US cause I found them online:
http://www.elzingagreenhouses.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=plants.plantDetail&plant_id=759

la ninja said...

that's a melon. definitely. :P

Rosaria Williams said...

That is some cucumber! Cool.

lucia m said...

this is one of my favorite things to eat when i am in Molfetta.

CK said...

ooo, that looks SO yummy

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Gosh, I've never seen one of those before!

Saretta said...

Welshcakes, it's odd that while we're both "southern Italy" we have such different availability of foodstuffs!