Vegetable: Cucumber

Recipes:
Chilled Cucumber Dill Soup
Chilled Cucumber Soup with Garlic and Mint
Cucumber Paté
Winter Salad with Tangy Cucumber Dressing

Type: The cucumber is technically a fruit, from the same family as squashes, watermelons and courgettes.

Vitamin and mineral content: Slicing cucumbers and pickling cucumbers.

Reputedly good for: A cucumber's high water content means you get the extra fluid needed when consuming fibre. The silica (a mineral) content of cucumbers is often sighted as being good for the skin, while all that water is hydrating.

Availability: Naturally in season from May to July.

Storage: Keep them in the fridge - they wilt at room temperature.

Preparation: Go for unwaxed cucumbers so you can eat the nutrition-filled skin.

Origins: The first evidence of cucumber growing is from India, some 3000 years ago. Its cultivation spread across Asia to Greece and Italy where it was enthusiastically adopted by the Romans, which is probably how its popularity spread across the rest of Europe. During the 1600s a general mistrust of salad food (thought to be harbingers of disease) led to a period in the wilderness. Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary on 22 September 1663, "This day Sir W. Batten tells me that Mr. Newhouse is dead of eating cowcumbers, of which the other day I heard of another, I think." It took some time for cucumbers (fit only for cows in these twilight years) to be accepted again into the salad bowls of society. By the 19th century, their reputation was safe, and cucumbers have been a summer staple ever since.