Cetriolo • Melone

Speaking of poison, cucumber contains an indigestible element, which also can be expelled by preliminary salting. In Apulia, the warty cucumber is more often grown, a cultivar of Cucumis sativus, rather than its relation – the long smooth variety: warty cucumbers for salad purposes, dwarf warty cucumbers for conserving in vinegar.

But the cucumber scene is complicated by the fact that another ‘cucumber’, short, oval, dark-skinned, hairy, plays a double role. In July when young it serves as cucumber, needs no preliminary salting, is crisp and refreshing; but, when one or two specimens are left on the plant, they swell into delightful round green melons which, cut in late September, can be stored indoors and keep till Christmas. In dialect it is cucummarazzu or milune, but more often minne di monaca, ‘nun’s tits’. These are the ones we grow.