Cucumber stories: #3

Another cucumber story: that little bowl of thinly sliced cucumbers with sweetened vinegar and some thinly sliced onion was so good that I began to think of other ways of enjoying it. There was a very ripe muskmelon (cantaloupe) in the house, so I cut out little chunks of the melon and mixed it with the cucumber mix. The result was really tasty: for one thing, it really brought out the melon quality in the cucumber. Cucumbers and melons belong to the same plant family, and are placed in the same genus.  And from a culinary point of view they have some qualities in common, and the combination of melon and cucumber in the sweetened vinegar was right on the mark. It was so good in fact that I decided to try it in a more important way. I roasted some pork ribs, cut off the meat and cubed it. Meanwhile some jasmine rice was cooking. When the rice was done, it was mixed with the dripping from the roasted pork, and then a big bowl of cucumber and melon slices in the sweetened vinegar was mixed in with the rice. The pork went in next, and I soon sat down to one of those “where have you been all my life” experiences. This combination would probably be just as good without the meat.