Picking the Best Varieties of Cucumber

Andrea Chesman

When it comes to cukes, think small seeds and tender skin.

storey-Picking the Best Varieties of Cucumber-01 — Andrea Chesman’s garden in winter

It’s time to start dreaming about this summer’s garden. Those seed catalogs that came in the mail in December aren’t getting any younger and neither are you. I write this as 3 inches of snow falls today, in preparation of another 3 tomorrow, and following 3 inches yesterday. Yet, spring will come (I think) and the time to start plants will be upon us before we know it.

I’m not one to keep notes from one year to the next about the garden, nor do I race to plant the newest varieties featured in the seed catalogs. But I call myself a cook who gardens, and as a cook and an enthusiastic pickler, I am done with the traditional cucumbers — the slicing, or salad varieties — that everyone grows. There are many different cultivars, but they are all Marketmores to me — and they all have relatively tough, bitter skins and a tendency to be too seedy to make good pickles. They yield abundantly, so if you grow slicing cucumbers, you will have too many and you will make pickles. And the pickles won’t be as great as they should be.

storey-Picking the Best Varieties of Cucumber-02 — Note the size difference between the pickling cucumber and the Mid-Eastern type

The solution, you may think, is to grow pickling cucumbers. Don’t grow pickling cucumbers. They get fat. They get fat and seedy, sometime in the blink of a rainy afternoon. And they hide underneath leaves, getting fatter and fatter. Don’t get me started on those white and yellow pickling cucumbers, either, with their tendency to become bitter in adverse weather.

For the last couple of years, I have been growing Beit Alpha and Asian cucumbers — great for both slicing and pickling. These are long, either curved or straight, with generally tender skin. The flavor of the flesh is sweet and slightly aromatic (unlike the neutral wetness of a slicing cucumber). Yes, they require trellising, but the great thing about these cucumbers is that they forgive you if you neglect your garden for a bit, as they don’t go from almost-ready-to-be-harvested to oversized in a day.

The Beit Alpha types, also called Mid-Eastern types, are especially adapted to hot, dry climates, but I have had good luck with them in rainy, cool Vermont. Lebanese cucumbers are nearly seedless, smooth-skinned, and mild, yet with a distinct flavor and aroma.

storey-Picking the Best Varieties of Cucumber-03 — Sliced Middle Eastern type cucumbers

Asian cucumbers (Fed Co Seeds call them “long-fruited cucumbers”), such as Tasty Jade, are spiny, slender, and long — sometimes measuring as much as a foot in length. Leave them on the vine and they just get longer, though after a point, they do become tough. These cukes are mild, deep green, and have a bumpy, ridged skin.

storey-Picking the Best Varieties of Cucumber-04 — Who needs big seeds?

The best cucumbers are ones that you can eat in the garden — all flavor and thirst-quenching wetness. Bring the rest into the kitchen, slice and quickly brine in a little salted rice vinegar with red onions or garlic. Just the thought of it makes me long for summer right now.

<h6>Photos courtesy of the author.</h6>

Andrea Chesman

About the Author

Andrea Chesman is the author of The Fat Kitchen as well as many other cookbooks that focus on traditional techniques and fresh-from-the-garden cooking. Her previous books include The Pickled Pantry, Serving Up the Harvest, 101 One-Dish Dinners, and The Backyard Homestead Book of Kitchen Know-How. She teaches and gives cooking demonstrations and classes across the United States. She lives in Ripton, Vermont.

Michael Ruhlman is the author of The Elements of Cooking, The Soul of a Chef, and The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America, among others.

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