04/18/2022
👨🌾🥒Cucumbers, a lifetime of history.⏳️🥒
The cucumber originates from South Asia, but now grows on most continents, as many different types of cucumber are traded on the global market. Cultivated for at least 3,000 years, the cucumber originated from India, where a great many varieties have been observed, along with its closest living relative, Cucumis hystrix. It was probably introduced to Europe by the Greeks or Romans. Records of cucumber cultivation appear in France in the 9th century, England in the 14th century, and in North America by the mid-16th century
Charlemagne had cucumbers grown in his gardens in the 8th/9th century. They were reportedly introduced into England in the early 14th century, lost, then reintroduced approximately 250 years later. The Spaniards (through the Italian Christopher Columbus) brought cucumbers to Haiti in 1494. In 1535, Jacques Cartier, a French explorer, found "very great cucumbers" grown on the site of what is now Montreal.
Throughout the 16th century, European trappers, traders, bison hunters, and explorers bartered for the products of American Indian agriculture. The tribes of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains learned from the Spanish how to grow European crops. The farmers on the Great Plains included the Mandan and Abenaki. They obtained cucumbers and watermelons from the Spanish, and added them to the crops they were already growing, including several varieties of corn and beans, pumpkins, squash, and gourd plants. The Iroquois were also growing them when the first Europeans visited them.
Fast forward to modern times.
In 2019, world production of cucumbers and gherkins was 88 million tonnes, led by China with 80% of the total.
