Cucumber

Production

In 2024, world production of cucumbers and gherkins was 88 million tonnes, led by China with 78% of the total (table).

Consumption

Nutrition

Raw cucumber (with peel) is 95% water, 4% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and contains negligible fat (table). In a reference amount of 100 grams (3+1⁄2 ounces), raw cucumber provides 65 kilojoules (16 kilocalories) of food energy, and has a low content of micronutrients notable only for vitamin K at 14% of the Daily Value (table).

Aroma and taste

Depending on variety, cucumbers may have a mild melon aroma and flavor, in part resulting from unsaturated aldehydes, such as (E,Z)-nona-2,6-dienal, and the cis- and trans- isomers of 2-nonenal. The slightly bitter taste of cucumber rind results from cucurbitacins. The polyphenol content is higher in unpeeled cucumbers.

Culinary uses

In horticulture, cucumbers are classified into three main cultivar groups: slicing, pickling, and seedless/burpless. Cucumbers grown to eat fresh are called slicing cucumbers. The main varieties of slicers mature on vines with large leaves that provide shading. Slicers grown commercially for the North American market are generally longer, smoother, more uniform in color, and have much tougher skin. In contrast, those in other countries, often called European cucumbers, are smaller and have thinner, more delicate skin, often with fewer seeds, thus are often sold in plastic skin for protection. This variety is called a 'telegraph cucumber' in Australasia.

Pickling with brine, sugar, vinegar, and spices creates flavored products from cucumbers and other foods. Cucumbers grown for pickling are shorter, thicker, and thinner-skinned than other varieties. Gherkins, cornichons, or baby pickles, are small cucumbers, typically those 2.5 to 12.5 centimetres (1 to 5 in) in length, often with bumpy skin, which are typically used for pickling. The word gherkin comes from the early modern Dutch gurken or augurken ('small pickled cucumber'). The term is used in the name for Cucumis anguria, the West Indian gherkin, a closely related species.

Burpless cucumbers are sweeter and have a thinner skin than other varieties of cucumber. They are reputed to be easy to digest and to have a pleasant taste. They can grow as long as 60 centimeters (2 ft), are nearly seedless, and have a delicate skin. Most commonly grown in greenhouses, these parthenocarpic cucumbers are often found in grocery markets, shrink-wrapped in plastic. They are marketed as either burpless or seedless, as the seeds and skin of other varieties of cucumbers are said to give some people gas.

Cucumber shoots are regularly consumed as a vegetable, especially in rural areas. In Thailand they are often served with a crab meat sauce. They can be stir fried or used in soups.

Cultivation history

Cultivated for at least 3,000 years, "Cucumis sativus" were domesticated in India from wild "C. sativus var. hardwickii". where a great many varieties have been observed, along with its closest living relative, Cucumis hystrix. The three main cultivar groups of cucumber are Eurasian cucumbers (slicing cucumbers eaten raw and immature), East Asian cucumbers (pickling cucumbers), and Xishuangbanna cucumbers. Based on demographic modelling, the East Asian C. sativus cultivars diverged from the Indian cultivars about 2,500 years ago. It was probably introduced to Europe by the Greeks or Romans. Records of cucumber cultivation appear in France in the 9th century, England in the 14th century, and in North America by the mid-16th century.

Roman Empire

According to Pliny the Elder, the Emperor Tiberius had the cucumber on his table daily during summer and winter. In order to have it available for his table every day of the year, the Romans reportedly used artificial growing methods (similar to the greenhouse system) using mirrorstone, Pliny's lapis specularis, believed to have been sheet mica: "Indeed, he was never without [cucumbers]; for he had raised beds made in frames upon wheels, by means of which the cucumbers were moved and exposed to the full heat of the sun; while, in winter, they were withdrawn, and placed under the protection of frames glazed with mirrorstone." They were cultivated in specularia, cucumber houses glazed with oiled cloth. Pliny describes the vegetable as very small, probably like a gherkin. Separately, he describes the preparation of a medication known as elaterium, but this may have been Ecballium elaterium, known in pre-Linnean times as Cucumis silvestris or Cucumis asininus ('wild cucumber' or 'donkey cucumber'), a different species. Pliny writes about several other varieties of cucumber, including the cultivated cucumber, and remedies from the different types (9 from the cultivated; 5 from the "anguine;" and 26 from the "wild").

Middle Ages

Charlemagne had cucumbers grown in his gardens in the 8th/9th century. They were reportedly introduced into England in the early 14th century, lost, then reintroduced approximately 250 years later. The Spaniards (through the Italian Christopher Columbus) brought cucumbers to Haiti in 1494. In 1535, Jacques Cartier, a French explorer, found "very great cucumbers" grown on the site of what is now Montreal.

Early-modern era

Throughout the 16th century, European trappers, traders, bison hunters, and explorers bartered for the products of American Indian agriculture. The tribes of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains learned from the Spanish how to grow European crops. The farmers on the Great Plains included the Mandan and Abenaki. They obtained cucumbers and watermelons from the Spanish, and added them to the crops they were already growing, including several varieties of corn and beans, pumpkins, squash, and gourd plants. The Iroquois were growing them when the first Europeans visited them. In 1630, the Reverend Francis Higginson wrote in his book New-Englands Plantation that "The countrie aboundeth naturally with store of roots of great varietie and good to eat. Our turnips, parsnips, and carrots are here both bigger and sweeter than is ordinary to be found in England. Here are store of pompions, cowcumbers, and other things of that nature which I know not". In New England Prospect (1633, England), William Wood wrote that "The ground affords very good kitchin gardens, for Turneps, Parsnips, Carrots, Radishes, and Pompions, Muskmillons, Isquoter-squashes, coucumbars, Onyons, and whatever grows well in England grows as well there, many things being better and larger."

Age of Enlightenment

Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary on 22 August 1663 that "this day Sir W. Batten tells me that Mr. Newburne is dead of eating cowcumbers, of which the other day I heard of another, I think. John Evelyn in 1699 wrote that the cucumber, "however dress'd, was thought fit to be thrown away, being accounted little better than poyson". According to the 18th-century British lexicographer and wit Samuel Johnson, it was commonly said among English physicians that a cucumber "should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing."