A Succulent Sugar Snap Pea Salad That Practically Makes Itself 🫛

Plus: An idea that started as a salad dressing but turned into a cooling cucumber soup.

Sugar Snap Pea Salad with Tarragon Vinaigrette

COULD WE BE HEADING INTO a cucumber renaissance? I sincerely hope so. Because I recently got another bee in my bonnet! This time about how absolutely great cucumbers are but how people in this country really don’t talk about them as much as they should.

Even though we eat 1.6 metric tons of them a year (or about 8.5 pounds per person). And even though the United States is one of the top ten cucumber producers worldwide. And even though they’re everywhere—honestly, think about all the ways we consume cucumbers: In cocktails, in noodle dishes, in sandwiches, in sushi, as pickles, and, of course, in salads

Remove the seeds from your cukes by gently scooping them out with a spoon.

So I clearly can’t claim that cucumbers are not consumed or enjoyed here. And I can’t let myself forget that in many cultures around the world cucumber dishes are considered indispensable. But I can have very strong suspicions that cucumbers were once given much more respect for their cool, refreshing, crunchy, subtly floral felicities.

Since their presumed origin in India 4,000 years ago, cucumbers have been mentioned in the Bible (“We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic"), become known as a favorite of emperors and kings (Tiberius and Charlemagne among them), and been employed in various cultures as symbols of healing and spiritual renewal. And of course, they eventually became a signifier of high society elegance among Victorians, in famous sandwich form.

Classic cucumber sandwiches. Well, la-di-da! (Getty Images)

Cucumbers are still delicious today. So can anyone tell me why, in modern times, they do not have their own holiday? It’s upsetting.