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To Fry Cucumbers
Peel, cut lengthwise in thick slices and lay in water till just before dinner. Wipe dry, sprinkle with pepper and salt, dip in beaten egg, sift over pounded cracker and fry with the cover on till light brown. Prepare exactly as egg-plant.--Mrs. S. T.
A plain breaded fry from the same page as the eggplant recipe it refers to. The whole thing hinges on getting the cucumber slices genuinely dry before they meet the egg.
- Pounded crackerSoda or water crackers crushed fine with a rolling pin — the period's all-purpose breading. Unsalted saltines or matzo crumbs give the closest texture; dried breadcrumbs work but brown faster and taste different.
- Which cucumbersUse large, firm, seedy cucumbers rather than thin-skinned English or Persian ones; mature cucumbers too coarse for slicing raw hold their shape in the pan.
- "Thick slices"About a half inch, cut the long way as directed. Thinner planks collapse into water in the pan before the crust colors.
- Soaking, then dryingThe cold-water soak firms the flesh, but wet cucumber will not hold egg and crumb. Wipe every surface, and salting the slices for 15 minutes and blotting them draws out still more water.
- The fat and the panA shallow layer of butter, lard or oil in a heavy skillet over medium heat. The recipe does not specify the fat; oil holds up best to the browning time.
- Frying coveredThe lid is deliberate — it steams the interior tender while the crumb crust sets. Take the cover off for the last minute or two if the crust has gone soft, so it can crisp.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities; two medium cucumbers, one egg and roughly a cup of cracker crumbs will serve about four as a side dish. Fry in batches and hold in a low oven rather than crowding the pan.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by Virginia housewives, is full of recipes like this one: a few lines, signed with initials, assuming the cook already knows the related method — here, "prepare exactly as egg-plant," a recipe found elsewhere in the book. Frying vegetables in egg and cracker crumb was standard Southern practice long before fried green tomatoes became shorthand for the region, and cucumber was a natural candidate: a prolific summer crop that turns coarse and bitter-seedy fast, leaving the cook with fruit unfit for slicing raw. Cooked cucumber strikes modern American palates as odd, but it was unremarkable in the nineteenth century, when cucumbers were also stewed, stuffed and made into soup, and when the vegetable's reputation for being hard to digest raw gave cooks an extra reason to put it in a pan.