Another cucumber story: on one of the first occasions when I
dined with Wayne’s parents in their home, cucumbers of all things provided the
most memorable element of that evening. When we went in for dinner, there on
the table was a small bowl with thinly sliced cucumbers in sweetened vinegar.
This really moved me because mom often put out a bowl of thinly sliced
cucumbers in vinegar for my dad. My dad grew up on a farm in Caroline County,
Virginia, and I always assumed that that bowl of cucumbers in vinegar was a
rural Virginia tradition. You have no idea how welcome that little bowl of
cucumbers on Wayne’s parents’ table made me feel.
I later discovered that the
cucumbers in vinegar thing is in fact very widely enjoyed. When my sister told
my niece that I had used the gift cucumbers to fix a bowl of cucumbers in
sweetened vinegar, my niece told her mother that that was exactly what she had
done with some cucumbers she had grown.
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