I’m a fuck-up in many ways, but I’m always amused when my wife runs out to the store and she asks if she can pick something up for me. The last time I asked for “shelled pistachios” and specifically said, after realizing the potential confusion, “meaning, without the shell,” but apparently “shell” was the only thing that stuck so I had to spend an hour shelling the bag for a recipe. I also remember sending her out for a cucumber and she came back with a zucchini. I mean, all understandable, but another reason why I like to do all the groceries.
Yeah, I was irritated, because words mean things, dammit, and the recipe called for a particular kind on purpose. But on the other hand, there were so many flavorful things going in the pot, which form of onion got used wasn’t going to be a deal breaker.
Likewise, Persian cucumbers are NOT regular cucumbers, but if that’s what the shopper comes home with, I’ll roll my eyes silently.
I’d let that slide if I didn’t specify. Here we usually have at least four: English cucumbers, seedless (English) cucumbers, Kirby cucumbers (which is what I thought of as regular cucumbers when I was a kid, as that’s what we used, but I now realize English are the more “generic” ones), and Persian cucumbers. If I don’t say “English cucumbers, the big, long one that looks like a zucchini,” that’s on me.
Wait, Persian and English cucumbers aren’t just varieties of generic cucumbers?
They are both cultivars of Cucumis sativus, so, yes, they are varieties of the common cucumber. You kinda use them differently. They’re different sizes, their seediness is different, etc. So you can make them work interchangeably in many cases, if you want. For example, I’ll use English cucumbers in a Jerusalem salad, but I prefer Persian or even Kirbys. When I make a Hungarian or Polish cucumber salad, I prefer English or Kirby because I like the larger circumference and that’s the usual cucumber to use, but it wouldn’t be disastrous to use Persians. Persians and Kirbys pickle well, but not so much English – they’re a bit too big. That kind of thing.
OK, I never heard of Kirby cucumbers but Googling, they’re the little ones that look like raw pickles, and that’s what they’re used for. Still trying to figure out what to call the larger ones that are 8-12 inches in length.
English cucumbers. That’s how they’re labeled here. Kirby’s are sometimes sold as “pickles” but they don’t have to be used only for pickling. My mother generally made her cucumber salad with Kirby cucumbers, not English.
No, English cucumbers are different from the ones I’m calling generic cucumbers but what are sometimes called American or garden cucumbers. The English ones are longer and skinnier with thin skins while the generic ones are shorter and fatter with thicker skins. The English cucumbers are sometimes sold wrapped in plastic.
Oh, I know what you’re talking about it. They’re a paler color, right? I can’t remember. At my grocery the English are sold loose, but the seedless English are sold in plastic. But I think there is a lighter colored one that’s a little rounder on the edges. That may just be sold as “cucumbers” now that I think of it. I don’t know if my grocery gives them a particular name; I don’t know, because I rarely buy those.
ETA: Scratch that. What I’ve been calling English cucumbers are not English cucumbers, after all. The seedless ones are English ones, and they do come in plastic. I thought there was a non-seedless English cucumber, but I guess not. But, yeah, I recognize yours, and I don’t usually buy it. I think that’s just “cucumber” in my store.
“Generic” cucumber on the left, English cucumber on the right.
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The “regular” cucumber in your picture is a Common American Garden cucumber. I think there are probably thousands of varieties that are lumped in together.
I think buying seeds of certain veg is a crap shoot. You get what get. We have a Pea situation around here. Purple hull peas are a mainstay of a southern kitchen garden. They have a particular smell and taste. Sometimes you buy and it’s not sure whether you’ll get PH or some other “near” or hybrid variety.
We’ve been drying our own PH seed since we got burned a couple times.
I like all peas and beans, there comes a time you just want those PH peas.
sorry, I never heard of “brown rice noodles”–what’s that?
Pasta made with brown rice flour.
They are gluten free
I once tried to make a lemon meringue pie ( my favorite kind) from scratch. Recipe called for either evaporated or condensed milk, I don’t recall.
Whichever it was, I bought the other, mistakenly believing they were the same thing.
They are not the same thing. Whole thing came out tasting almost entirely, (but not completely) unlike any kind of pie.
Pretty sure you bought evaporated milk instead of the required condensed milk. Which is basically the same as evaporated except for the addition of sugar in the reduction, making it a very different end product. That’s why your lemon meringue pie was nowhere near sweet enough.