Stephen Ausmus, USDA ARS photo At right, cucumbers grow on the vine. A tasty treat by themselves, adding dill makes a cucumber extra special.
ESCANABA — It’s the green and gold season.
Crisp, green cucumbers hiding on the vine, and amber heads of dill weed dancing in the breeze are a pretty sight.
Cucumbers and dill go together like apples and cinnamon.
For an essence so awesome, stroll through the garden and pluck a picky cuke from its twisty vine. Then harvest a ripe head of dill. The scent of cool, fresh cucumber and the zest of dill is an invigorating thing.
We had a backyard garden all the while we were growing up. By late summer, it was exploding with cucumbers. Scratchy cuke vines invaded the tomato plants and the lawn.
Finding cucumbers was like going on a treasure hunt. Every once in a while, one cuke managed to stay hidden until it was a huge yellow monster, only good for relish making.
The dill reseeded its self and came up every year like feathery, fern-like ballerinas bobbing between the rows.
We did what most families did in those days; we made a lot of pickles. Mom’s dill pickles, relish, bread and butter pickles and dilly beans were wonderful.
It seemed like back then our cucumber hills produced a greater yield. Maybe we had more rain in the 1970s. Cukes were abundant and we ate them as snacks, as salads, in vinegar and oil, in sour cream and on sandwiches. My Grandpa Rose had a lovely garden and often he’d say, “I’ll send a few cucumbers home with you.”
Mom would fill the laundry tub in the basement full of Grandpa’s cukes to wash them and start a day of pickle making.
The dill was a healthy, handy herb to have around too. Chewing on the tender green leaves (dill weed) of this plant made a tasty snuff that freshened the breath and settled the stomach.
We threw dill weed in salads, on grilled fish, in venison stew and a real treat was a loaf of cocktail rye bread. A little cream cheese, a slice of cucumber and a sprig or two of dill and we had a fancy snack.
The other useable part of dill is the seeds. These dried dill umbrellas were crammed into many a Mason jar for pickles.
Dill originated in Eastern Europe and is a member of the parsley family. The word “dill” means “to lull.” Dill seeds were used to soothe the stomach after meals.
Dill is easy to grow in any sunny area — and it’s even easier to enjoy in simple recipes like this:
1T. fresh dill weed chopped
Mix ingredients well. Add sliced cukes. Chill two hours before serving.
Karen (Rose) Wils is a lifelong north Escanaba resident. Her folksy columns appear weekly in Lifestyles.
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