Buenos Aires – I’ve been having fun, as summer produce has been appearing more and more at various markets, finding new and different items. Wandering through a local farmer’s market the other day we came across a pile of tunas. Back in the states I knew them as cactus pears or prickly pears. We picked up half a dozen each of the red and yellow ones and have been eating our way through them here and there – they’re deliciously juicy and sweet. Yesterday when I got back from Coreatown I had this urge to turn them into a licuado, blending the fruit with ice and chilled water until it was frothy, and then straining it. They didn’t need any added sugar, and it was a great refreshment on a hot day!
Coreatown seemed like a great place to find interesting vegetables, and yesterday we’d returned to the Wall of Cabbage looking for a few. This is not a sausage. It is, according to the young man who sold it to me, a cucumber. It has a brick orange, leathery skin. I felt it more likely to be some sort of root vegetable, or maybe a squash, but he was adamant. In regard to flavor he said it was similar to regular cucumbers, but different. He was right. The inside is a gleaming white color. The flavor is very intensely cucumbery, and the seeds and the pulp that surrounds them taste exactly like a tart, fresh lemon. I did a bit of online research and the closest cucumbers I could come up with were the Chinese Yellow and the Uzbkski (I looked at various types of Lemon Cucumbers, based on the flavor, but none I could find seem remotely like this in shape, size, or color). 
The former I could only find pictures of that were quite vividly yellow, though a couple of seed companies asserted that the cukes turn orange if left on the vine too long. It’s also described as having a very sweet, melony flavor. My cucumber didn’t seem past its prime, and the flavor profile doesn’t fit. The latter I could only find descriptions of, and one photo, and it’s described as “A fascinating heirloom from the Mideast country of Uzbekistan. Big, fat 6″-8″ cucumbers turn brown when ripe, very crisp even at large sizes.” My cucumber sort of fits that desciption, but it’s not fat, and it’s nearly 14″ long. I’m up for hearing from readers as to just exactly what this is! Meanwhile, I foresee a lemony cucumber salsa for some grilled fish in its future.
[…] Buenos Aires – Coreatown provided more fun produce in the form of what I’ve at best identified as a “Korean Melon.” There seem to be several different types, and the English translation is usually just rendered simply. Occasional additions like “Golden Liner” or “Golden King” are added to it, and the Cook’s Thesauraus site refers to it as the dua gan, though when I search on that phrase I come up with photos and descriptions of a very different type of melon, so I’m not placing any bets on that particular name. These are a little bigger than a softball. The flesh inside is very crisp and fresh tasting, not overly sweet, although it could just be that these are not fully ripe, as most descriptions I’ve seen of them tend towards a sweeter, more perfumey style. It’ll pair nicely with my off-beat cucumber in its salsa tonight or tomorrow. […]
[…] If you’ve been reading along, you’ve met the other two important ingredients, my bizarre cucumber and Korean melon (on the left in the photo, more details by clicking on the links). The word salsa here just simply means sauce, so I’m using it more in the sense that we gringos do. When I was growing up I’m not sure that salsa existed in our world of awareness. It first came to light probably either through Taco Bell (remember when they only had one “mild” hot sauce and it actually seemed spicy?) or perhaps in a jar from El Paso foods, used to make nachos at home. Gradually it became part of the vocabulary and meant a pureed red or green hot sauce. Somewhere down the line it became ubiquitous in the American restaurant world in the form of some sort of mix of chopped fruits or vegetables, flavored with hot peppers and herbs, and served alongside some sort of meat. I’m using it in that sense. […]
Cluvy over on eGullet finally responded as having recognized this as what he/she knows as old cucumber or lao huang gua (literally old yellow melon). Punching that into a google search yielded a few descriptions of, but no other photos. I’m afraid I didn’t use it for soup and I peeled it. My bad…
From asiafoodpix (on which the pix are all broken links…which sort of defeats the purpose I’d think):
Cucumber
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Cucumis sativus
Cucumber is usually eaten raw. The tips may be bitter in taste and often discarded. Keep fresh in a bucket of water. An orangy brown variety known to the Chinese as Old cucumber, or Lao huang-gua, is used almost exclusively for soups. Usually cut into sections and not peeled.
I did find an interesting photo when I plugged in “old cucumber” to google images at U M A M I who used a very similar looking, if shorter, lao huang gua to make tea!