Amador ledger., 1905-09-22
TAKE OUT THE POISON
RoW CUCUMBERs MAY BE MADE
HARMLESS.
It Can Be Done Without Destroying
the Flavor Of the Vegetable
Will Not Hurt Delicate
Stomachs.

"
Stomachs.
The cucumber remains the attraction
and the terror Of the salad, and there
10 no agreement as to the way in which
1t can be served so that it will be eaten
at its best and yet not necessarily be
fatal to health. To persons who cannot
eat them with impunity nothing is more
poisonous than the ordinary cucumbers
of the city markets. They are old and
stale and full of poison to any but the
strongest stomach. Persons who can
not stand the sight of an ordinary Gu
cumber can with impunity eat fresh
ones just out ofsthe garden
1t is just as possible to restore any
hardened city cucumber to freshness
and innocuOusness with no loss of fla
vor, although few persons have the pa
tience to give the salad the necessary
treatment. Restaurant keepers are
unwilling to take so much time, except,
perhaps, the Germans.
They soak thinly cut slices of cucum
ber until they are soft. These are
kept for most of a day in salt water,
and usually parsley, and sometimes
chive is cut up in the salt water.
When the cucumbers are ready for
serving they are free from all poison,
and they are in measure free from
taste. There is no denying, however,
that they are digestible.
Some persons who have eaten these
cucumbers in the German and Hun
garian restaurants like them better
than the ordinary cucumbers served
here. They lack, however, the crisp
ness which every American demands in
salad.
This quality is retained by putting
the cut up cucumbers into ice cold wa
ter for half an hour before they are
served. After they have been cut
they should be soaked in salt water for
at least five hours. Then the poison
is gone, but the salad is soft and limp
Put for half an hour just before they
are served, into ice water, they will be
white and crisp, tasteful and free from
the power to disagree with the most
delicate stomach. After being treated
in this way they may be served very
prettily on plate in the form of the
whole cucumber before it has beer
cut.
To do this the slices should not bt
separated in the salt water. A hatpi1
run through every cucumber after II
has been sliced will keep it intact
Served in this way with a fish or as
salad, the appearance of the cucumber:
is very attractive. But to suit the va.
rieties of taste, it is easier to do NOR,
in salad when the slices are not KEEP
together.
Cucumbers cut very thin, and,
course, soaked in advance, mix yer,
deliciously with alligator salad, and
Is best in the case of this combination
to break away from the alligator pea
salad rule of using lemon juice and TAX
vinegar.
The taste of the two is not dissimilaI
and there must be pungency in tn
dressing which alligator pears alon
do not need.
With thin scallions cut lengthwis
the cucumbers blend in a way that an
epicure would love, and cucumbers wit
green peppers, cut lengthwise, are
combination that offers some novelt.
after the inevitable lettuce that mos
persons seem to think are the onl
salads in the market.
There are some new figs in marke
which have brought delight to the per
sons who like that fruit, but have neve
found it possible to make, even il
imagination, the figs ordinarily sole
bear any relation to the fresh fruit !
Those that have been stuffed and ART
kept damp by some artificial mean.
are too wet and insipid to please any
man in the least bit captious aboui
figs.
Nor are those to which additiona
flavor has been added agreeable to the
real epicure of figs. Some of them
have nuts in the heart of the dried fig
and others have cherries. They may
be good enough as a sweet, but to the
lover of figs they are not attractive.
Nothing has come so near the real
article as the figs that have recently
been brought here. They are not cheap.
There are only six in box, but these six
have the dewy freshness and deli
cate flavor of fig that had ripened
in the sun and been picked from it's
branch only few minutes before. So
one Is almost reconciled to paying so
cents for the delicious six-N. Y. Sun,