Other translations call it "a hut in a field of cucumbers," referring to a shack that farmers would put in their fields and occupy at night to guard their crops against plunder. Doing this.Įven more evocative is Isaiah 1:8, “And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.” Well, I'm not in Tucson or Tuscany or Tuscaloosa or one of the garden spots the we well-heeled have fled to. My neighborhood feels emptied out when I walk the dog. Because when cucumbers are in, the gentry are out of town.'")Īre they ever. "Tailors could not be expected to earn much money 'in cucumber season'. Hence cucumber time." (The association having to do with once popular songs referring to early summer. Though the OED overlooks "As cold as cucumbers" in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Cupid's Revenge" in 1615, it does note that, as slang, cucumber denotes, "some obscure reference to a tailor. Speaking of grace under pressure, "cool as a cucumber" is almost 300 years old, tracing to Gay Poems of 1732. Next time the subject comes up, you can say, with confidence, "Well, if it has seeds, then it must be a fruit."Įating a cucumber sandwich, I didn't think of it as "a cucumber sandwich," did not think of Algernon being unable to stop eating them in "The Importance of Being Earnest." In all candor, I'd never have thought of consuming them that way - to me, cucumbers are diced and scattered on salads. Thus corn, peppers, zucchini, all fruits.
So seeds are the giveaway - if it has seeds, the germs of reproduction, then it's fruit. are from the leaves, stems, roots, bulbs. from the flowering parts of the plant - those involved in reproduction. Which leads to the difference between fruits and vegetables, which I should know, but don't, meaning some of you must not either. (I almost included tomatoes, but those I already accept, grudgingly, as fruits). Cucumbers are not the vegetables that we - okay, I - assumed them to be, but fruits, with more in common with cantaloupes and watermelons than salad denizens like lettuce or radishes. native of southern Asia, from ancient times cultivated for its fruit." The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as a "creeping plant. French, "concombre," from the Latin, "cucumis" pronounced, "koo-koo mis."
It sounds British, doesn't it? Like "North Umberland." Maybe a Franco-Saxon mash-up: "que cumber"?
I tried playing my guess-the-origins word game. "Cucumber.' Now there's a word you don't think about much. Quite delicious, sliced thin, on a fresh bagel from Once Upon a Bagel in Highland Park, which really ought to be designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. I planted cucumbers this year, as a lark, and while my tomatoes are still trying to gather themselves and make an appearance, this bad boy was so big I decided to harvest him and try him out at lunch.
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