A Summer Delight: Cucumbers and Sour Cream

               Cucumbers and Sour Cream are one of the vegetable highlights of our summer meals. The combination of these elements – cucumbers mixed in sour cream and salt with sometimes other ingredients – are a common dish especially for the countries of Middle and Eastern Europe: Germany, Czechia, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Ukraine, etc. My family’s is the Slovak/Polish variety, it being the recipe that was passed down from my mother’s side. During my growing up years, it almost always made an appearance on the table at Thanksgiving, which is the way that my mother remembers also having it.
              Most recipes including the ones from the Polish and Slovaks have the optional addition of vinegar, and sometimes dill, lemon juice, onion and garlic. We, however, leave these out, and find it absolutely delicious! (Although personally I can highly recommend a dash of dill weed and just a drop of white vinegar and a sprinkle of white sugar to elevate it all to slightly higher levels!)
               Now, we don’t eat it at Thanksgiving anymore; with the garden in full bloom every summer, we get the holiday experience every week – or every few days, if the harvest is going very well. Four weeks ago, our first cucumbers began to produce, much to our joy: Diamant Pickling Cucumbers. The much-loved Diva variety was next, and these are the kind that are being used in our video. In appearance they are long, dark green and incredibly smooth – almost no prickles! In taste, they are lightly crisp and very watery – perfect for eating – and for making this lovely dish. (The pickling cucumbers we grow are also exceptional for fresh eating and making Cucumbers and Sour Cream as well.)
               So far, we are six weeks into one of the hottest and wettest summers in recent memory, but we can’t say that the Old Farmer’s Almanac didn’t warn us with those dire threats of an extra hot and thunder-filled summer for Ohio! But despite the terrible weather, the tomatoes are finally producing (slowly), the zucchinis are picking up speed, and thankfully, we have our cucumbers. We hope you can try this wonderful and simple recipe and we anticipate anyone who likes both cucumbers and sour cream loving it as much as we do.
               Smacznego or Dobrú chuť since the Slovaks contributed a good deal to this lusciousness!