Cucumber and Wakame Salad

Long ago a friend of my mother’s showed her how to draw the bitterness out of a cucumber: Cut off about an inch of the stem end, rub the cut surfaces together until they foam, then rinse off the foam. Only recently have we learned that this practice, called aku nuki, or “removal of bitterness, ” is a Japanese technique. We still don’t know why it works.

The fresh crunch of cucumber is a good contrast to the softness of wakame, and its pale green color sets off wakame’s dark g