The other thing that people should know about me is that I am a foodie. My Dad was nasty in the kitchen, and he imparted some of that on to me, sorta like how Galactus touched the Silver Surfer. Anyway, just out of curiosity I am gonna try this, maybe as soon as this weekend. Something about the combo of the mayo and pepperidge farm white bread seems sketchy, but what the hell. I used to think sushi was sketchy too...
UPDATE: LOL. Postbourgie on cucumber sandwiches: Ya'll lost me at the mayonnaise family.
I may have this wrong but there is a black wariness toward anything that runs--mac and cheese has to be baked within an inch of its life, chicken has to be fried extra-hard, steak needs to have not a drop of blood. That last part is changing some--I see more brothers going with medium every day. Of course we also gave the world chitterlings--shudder. Anyway black people, please correct me if I'm wrong on this one
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
In my experience, cucumber sandwiches are actually cream cheese sandwiches. We cut the cucumber as thin as possible and spread the cream cheese as thick as possible on wheat bread, and if you managed to drown the cucumber completely in the cream cheese, they were passable.
my background is hillbilly as hell, so i didn't get much exposure to cucumbers outside of pickles. the first cucumber sandwich i had was at a ladies' tea thing for my husband's grandmother's birthday and it was GREAT, white bread and all. this led to my trying watercress sandwiches, and then *radish* sandwiches. it's all good, so eat up!
If you want to go crazy, you could try making the mayo. Ruhlman's got a recipe in a recent blog post, looks tasty. Or rather, tastier than anything that comes out of a jar.
Cucumber sandwiches must be a regional thing among us white folks. This is the first I'm hearing of it and I grew up in the WASPiest of towns - but that was out west. Maybe it's an eastern/southern thing. White people out here (I now live in DC) are weird...
I've never had a cucumber sandwich although I have seen them at a tea I just passed them over.
I DO, however, choose to have my steak medium. It's just better that way. I had to get there gradually, going from well to med-well to medium.
Otherwise I agree, "WE" don't like our food to run. We like it browned with crispy edges and oftentimes just plain charred!
A truly good cucumber sandwich requires a bread with some flavor, like rye. Just bread, cucumbers (I like them sliced thick), fresh cracked pepper, and whatever spread you like. Belle goes for the mayo, Andrew uses cream cheese; I'm no fan of mayo or cream cheese, so I like my cucumber sandwiches with plain yogurt. But that would probably be classified as sketchy. Even a slice of mild cheese should work.
@ Ingvy: As best I can tell, cucumber sandwiches are a culinary "gift" from the British to the rest of the world. I ate them growing up (I am from Wales, where I spent the first 13 years of my life) and never imagined life without them until I came to the States. After a few years I went to tea at a ritzy hotel and saw them on the menu.
Scandinavians are very big on cucumber sandwiches as well. Very popular for breakfast.
I want meat in a sandwich. Even a finger sandwich. The thought of eating a cucumber sandwich just perplexed me.
Chicken must be crispy, but beef, well, I dunno. I'm still an oddity in my family, ordering a steak - medium. True story - with my family in California; swanky hotel. Room about 150-200 Black folks. Dinner? Prime Rib - the way it's supposed to be.
I can count on two hands the number of people who did NOT send their Prime Rib back to be cooked some more..LOL
if you're not familiar with Colson Whitehead, shame on you.
read anything and everything he writes.
in his novel, "apex hides the hurt," the protagonist receives a cucumber sandwich from the hotel's room service.
the protagonist, a black guy in a "white" town, is told it's the only item available.
It sounds like you're speaking specifically of black Americans...
And what about gumbo? I suppose its runny existence is explained by French, African, and Native American influences. And the Jamaican side of my family is big on stews, curries, and porridges.
Your Latin American brothers and sisters (and probably lots of other folks too) have been cooking animal intestines a long time too! "Chinchulines" on wikipedia redirects to "chitterlings." The particular name and some particular recipes may have been black contributions to the world, but the food itself owes its existence to agrarian life and the reluctance to waste that comes with poverty.
Yes, yes Shani and Eduardo, don't want to leave my black and brown, sisters and brothers from other mothers behind. Curry and stews are all fine. But even curry proves my point--think about how it's prepared (at least chicken). Correct me if I'm wrong here, but the basic method (at least the one I use) to cook that sucker until the meat falls off the bone, no? And yeah Eduardo, poverty is huge part of the chitterlings thing.
seriously? i'm as white as they come - midwest! jello salad at thanksgiving! mmm...marshmallows! - and have never in my life eaten a cucumber and mayonnaise sandwich. ew.
Yes, TC, you speak for this African-American... if it ain't, as one previous poster pointed out, charred... I don't want it... (lol) As for the cucumber sandwiches, bro, what's a sandwich without the meat,, for real, tho'! :-)
" Of course we also gave the world chitterlings--shudder."
You say this as if it were a bad thing, Ta-Nehisi. Then again I'm part Filipina (also part white), so deliciously seasoned pig intestines .... hey what's not to like? Come on now! One of my favorite dishes in the world is a nice dinaguan (pig's blood stew with vingegar and liver bits -- and don't say ewww, it's delicious).
To hop onto Eduardo's point, I'd agree with the brown people's food contributions thing, except that it isn't really brown people, it's a global agrarian/poor people thing. But it's a fascinating thing that over time, the same things that were once considered undesirable poor people's food eventually move into the realm of expensive delicacies. A lot of French cooking comes to mind here. I doubt the common garden snail cooked in butter was an elite thing initially. And whipped liver? Mmmm.
If I may offer advice on your cucumber sandwich, I'd skip the peppridge farm white bread (eww), and get a better grade of white bread. If you can get to a bakery I'd do that.
Dear Ta-Nehisi,
The idea that fried chicken needs to be fried extra hard is part of the institutionalized racism that the white man has instilled in us since slavery. The best fried chicken is falling off the bone so you can dip it in Frank's Red Hot, maybe with a little honey. Similarly, mac and cheese does need to be baked, but if you've ever been to a church basement function you'll also take note that the hard mac and cheese is the picked over mac and cheese. It's best to use 3 cheeses and make sure that it's--not runny as an intrinsic quality so much as ABLE to run if necessary, much like the slaves when they heard the overseers and dogs chasing them in the night as they follow-followed the drinking gourd. I'm just hear to drop knowledge where it's needed. Ya'll need to read your his'try. LOL!!!! ;)
I for one don't mind runny mac & cheese. Hate the baked kind with the eggs mixed in and the burnt edges. The shell of fried chicken I like crispy, but if the meat were equally hard and crunchy that would mean war.
I believe that Jews shy away from runniness, too (and even have "laws" against leaving blood in meat). And please, give us mustard over mayonnaise any day.
I like my mac & cheese cheesy and runny. I also subscribe to the "show the cow a picture of fire" when it comes to my meat.
However, my evil white devil girlfriend is seducing me to the ways of mayo. Tonight, I had some to dip my asparagus in. Yum! I decided not to go with my wasabi mayo, though, because I was afraid it would clash with the Dijon sauce on the chicken.
I do actually like cucumber sandwiches, but I prefer them with cream cheese instead of mayo.
I always love listening to Northern black folks talk about how mayonnaise is some nasty white people food, because down here in New Orleans, mayo (aka "mah-naze") is a black staple. I don't just mean sandwiches, either; many's the time I've watched black folks squirting it all over their French fries like people in Amsterdam, or mixing it with hot sauce as an all-purpose dip.
I remember watching "Undercover Brother" with this chick who kept asking me what the deal was with the mayonnaise. Like so many things, I explained to her, everywhere else in the country it's the exact opposite of New Orleans.
I had an absolutely delicious shrimp & cucumber sandwich in England. Does that count? The bread was soft and white - very soft, very white - ends cut off. I actually don't remember if there was mayo. There was a mayo-looking paste in the sandwich, but I think it was some sort of dill-flavored spread. It was years ago and I still crave that sandwich.
Re: chitterlings and things that run. We Caribbean people have 'black pudding.' The English have their version, but this is a recipe for Trinidadian black pudding, which is not afraid of anything runny. The first ingredient is '1 pail blood.' Step 3 of the recipe is 3) When all the ingredients are well mixed, use a funnel to fill the belly. And by belly they mean pig intestines.
http://tinyurl.com/6md652
Enjoy.
This has to be a regional white thing because I'm white and have been a part of/ interacted with many of the differing tribes of white people in the midwest (hillbillies, lower class urban, upper class) and have never even heard of the cucumber sandwich. I'd have to throw the "whiteness" of this "sandwich" into question, because out here in the whitest of white country anything that doesn't have meat and is not cake is assumed of being "foreign".
Erich,
1) I have to disagree. The cucumber sandwich may be an product of the New England W.A.S.P. subculture, but since Greenwich, Connecticut is the Harlem of whiteness, the cucumber sandwich is not just white, it is SUPER white. No Midwestern grandmothers marshmallow salad could possibly compete in terms of sheer whiteitude.
2)And you're acting like there is some DIFFERENCE between individual white people. Absurd! They all look the same to me.