40 Fun Facts About Cucumbers

Which pets leapt in fright at cucumbers placed behind them in a wave of viral videos in 2015?

Cats were reacting to an object that had appeared where they did not expect one, behaviourists said, and they urged owners to stop because a startled pet can injure itself.

The sea cucumber is an animal, not a plant, and belongs to the same group as which sea creature?

Starfish and sea cucumbers are both echinoderms, built on a five-part body plan that the sausage-shaped sea cucumber hides by lying on its side.

Which playwright has Algernon eat every cucumber sandwich meant for Lady Bracknell in an 1895 comedy?

Oscar Wilde opens The Importance of Being Earnest with the joke, and Algernon then has his manservant claim that the market had no cucumbers that morning.

Despite its name, the yard-long Armenian cucumber is botanically a variety of which other fruit?

Melon is the true species of the Armenian cucumber, also sold as snake cucumber, which tastes and looks inside much like the real thing.

In VeggieTales, what is the name of the cucumber who co-hosts with Bob the Tomato?

Larry the Cucumber, introduced in 1993 and voiced by Mike Nawrocki, is Bob's optimistic and whimsical best friend.

Which bathroom scrubber is the dried fibrous skeleton of a vine fruit related to the cucumber?

Loofah is the fully ripened fruit of the luffa vine, processed until nothing is left but its network of tough fibres.

Which substance makes up about 95 percent of a raw cucumber, leaving only 16 calories per 100 grams?

Water accounts for nearly all of a cucumber's weight; the rest is about 4% carbohydrate and 1% protein, with almost no fat.

In which animated series does a scientist turn himself into a pickle to avoid family therapy?

Rick and Morty won its first Emmy for the 2017 episode Pickle Rick, a parody of action films.

In which country were cucumbers first domesticated from a wild form more than 3,000 years ago?

India is still home to a great many cucumber varieties and to the crop's closest living relative, Cucumis hystrix.

Which Roman emperor, Pliny the Elder wrote, had cucumbers on his table every day of the year?

Tiberius had them grown in raised beds on wheels that were rolled into the sun and then sheltered under glazed frames in winter, an early kind of greenhouse.

Which explorer is credited with bringing cucumbers to the Americas, reaching Haiti in 1494?

Christopher Columbus was sailing for Spain, and by 1535 Jacques Cartier found very large cucumbers growing where Montreal now stands.

Which country grows more than three quarters of all the cucumbers harvested in the world?

China harvested 78% of the 88 million tonnes grown worldwide in 2024.

Which of these crops belongs to the gourd family of plants, along with the cucumber?

Pumpkin, squash and courgette all share the cucumber's family, a group of about 965 species that botanists also call the gourd family.

Which Greek dip of strained yogurt, cucumber and garlic is served with souvlaki and gyros?

Tzatziki takes its name from the Turkish cacık, and close cousins of the dish are eaten from the Balkans to West Asia.

Which cooling yogurt side dish, often made with cucumber, is served with pulao and spicy curries?

Raita is usually served chilled, and its name comes from rai, the Hindi word for the black mustard seeds that are often fried into it.

Which cold Andalusian soup blends raw cucumber with tomato, peppers, garlic and olive oil?

Gazpacho only turned red in the 19th century, when tomatoes were added to a much older recipe.

Which brined cheese tops a traditional Greek salad of cucumber, tomato, onion and Kalamata olives?

Feta is joined by lettuce in American-style versions of the dish, which Greeks know as horiatiki.

Oi-sobagi, cucumber stuffed with chili paste, is a spring and summer version of which Korean staple?

Kimchi made with cucumber was already listed in a Korean book of 1766, alongside radish versions.

Which fern-leaved herb, also used to flavour gravlax, gives a classic pickled cucumber its name?

Dill sometimes goes into the jar as whole flower heads, and it is best used fresh because it loses its flavour quickly once dried.

Which gin-based English fruit cup is usually garnished with cucumber and mint as a summer long drink?

Pimm's began as a digestive tonic that James Pimm served in small tankards at his oyster bar near the Bank of England.

Hendrick's gin, launched in Scotland in 1999, is infused with cucumber and which flower?

Rose essence from Bulgaria goes in alongside the cucumber, and the makers suggest a cucumber slice in the glass in place of the usual citrus.

What do the French call the tiny, tart pickled cucumbers traditionally served with pâté?

Cornichons are pickled in vinegar and tarragon, and they are a traditional partner for cold cuts as well.

Omar and Cora Fanning's sweet 1920s pickles are said to be named for which staples they bartered them for?

Bread and butter is what the Illinois cucumber farmers are said to have got from their grocer in exchange, and they filed for a trademark on the name in 1923.

Which acid, made by bacteria on the cucumber's skin, sours a brine pickle without any vinegar?

Lactic acid is produced by Lactobacillus as the cucumbers ferment in salty brine, and it doubles as the preservative.

What does the ripe fruit of the squirting cucumber, Ecballium elaterium, shoot out in a slimy jet?

Its seeds are fired out by pressure that builds up in the sap of the fruit, a rare case of rapid movement in a plant.

Cucumber sandwiches are traditionally served at the tea break of club matches in which English sport?

Cricket writes a tea interval into its Laws, and at English clubs the sandwiches are a fixture of the spread that fills it.

In the Book of Numbers, the wandering Israelites long for the cucumbers they once ate in which land?

Egypt is recalled in the same verse for its leeks, onions and garlic, a list that later rabbis picked over when they debated what manna tasted like.

Which food company gave away pickle-shaped pins at its stand at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair?

Heinz had an out-of-the-way booth in an upper gallery of the Agricultural Building, and the free pins were its founder's idea for luring visitors upstairs.

Japan's cucumber sushi roll is thought to be named after which turtle-shelled creature of folklore?

Kappa are said to count cucumbers as their favourite meal, so people still leave them as offerings at festivals, and the roll is called kappamaki.

Benedictine, a cucumber and cream cheese spread created by Jennie Benedict, comes from which US state?

Kentucky grocers around Louisville, where she ran her catering business, still sell it ready-made, and it began life as a sandwich filling.

A deadly 2011 E. coli outbreak in Germany, first blamed on Spanish cucumbers, was traced to which food?

Fenugreek sprouts from an organic farm in Lower Saxony carried the bacteria, and Spain was angry that its growers had been wrongly accused.

Raw cucumber is low in most micronutrients but gives about 14% of the daily value of which one?

Vitamin K stands out because everything else is so scarce in a fruit that is only 4% carbohydrate and 1% protein.

In Danish and Norwegian, cucumber time is the name for the slow summer news period English calls what?

Silly season has a cousin in old English slang too: in the 1800s, tailors called their own slack months cucumber time.

Which dictionary writer repeated the doctors' joke that a cucumber should be sliced, dressed, then thrown away?

Samuel Johnson called it a common saying among English physicians, and his biographer James Boswell wrote the remark down.

In Gulliver's Travels, a scholar in Lagado has spent eight years trying to extract what from cucumbers?

Sunbeams were to be sealed in jars and let out to warm the air in chilly summers, part of a satire on the Royal Society and its experiments.

Which group of brothers released the 1970 album Cucumber Castle, based on their own television special?

Bee Gees took the title from a song on their 1967 album Bee Gees' 1st, and Barry and Maurice Gibb co-produced the record.

Sea cucumbers breathe through internal respiratory trees that they fill by way of which body opening?

The anus leads to a pair of branching tubes: the animal draws the sea in, takes up the dissolved oxygen and pumps the rest back out.

Which thin, spiralling organs does a cucumber vine wrap around a trellis or frame in order to climb?

Tendrils are optional equipment: with nothing to grip, the plant simply sprawls along the ground instead.

Botanists class the cucumber, with its tough outer rind, as a pepo, a specialised type of which fruit?

Berry is the botanical category, although in the kitchen the cucumber is treated as a vegetable.

Kosher-style pickles are named for the garlicky recipe of Jewish pickle makers in which city?

New York pickle sellers also tell a full-sour, which is fully fermented, from a half-sour, which is still crisp and bright green.