A fun trick for children is to grow a cucumber inside a narrow-necked bottle. When the container is full of cucumber, it is removed from the vine and taken into school to challenge teachers how it got into the bottle.
In fact this is but a variation on a practice dating back several centuries to England and France. Women enjoyed a perry or pear cider made by slipping a bottle over a small pear and allowing it to grow until it filled the bottle, when it was cut off the tree. Perry was then poured in, the bottle was corked and the beverage allowed to ferment for a short time before being ready for consumption.
Today, zucchini or other summer squash, along with eggplant, melon, pumpkin or winter squash are also suitable candidates for such culture – minus the alcoholic additive. The catch is that to retrieve the by now oddly shaped veggie, the bottle most by broken if glass, or cut away if plastic, often resulting in damaged specimen.
A modern twist is to raise heart-shaped cumbers for commercial gain for occasions such as Valentine’s Day. Although apparently a practice in Japan for some time, where square-shaped watermelons have traditionally been raised in moulds, it has recently caught on in Germany and England. Heart- or star-shaped moulds are slipped over the cucumbers when they are about an inch long. The vines are trained up stakes or trellises to ensure the cucumbers grow straight. It takes about 10 days for the clear moulds to fill.
The moulds don’t come cheap. Those produced in Japan reportedly retail for $85 for half-a dozen. However, Richard Twedell, a ‘toy conceptualist’ in Cincinnati offers various moulds for $10.95 plus $2.50 postage. Contact him at Vegiforms, 2 Burton Woods Lane, Cincinnati, Ohio 45229. As a variation on the theme, Mr. Twedell suggests you send several good photographs of yourself or your mother-in-law’s head and you’ll get a sculpted bust plus a six-mould set – for US$2,500.
