Cucumber Yogurt Salad and Submarine Warfare

Sudanese Appetizer

CUCUMBER YOGURT SALAD
(Salatet Zabady bil Ajur)

INGREDIENTS

2 cucumbers
2 garlic cloves
1¾ cups plain yogurt
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt

Makes 6 bowls. Takes 1 hour 15 minutes

PREPARATION

Peel and dice cucumber. Mince garlic cloves. Add all ingredients to serving. Mix well with whisk. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

TIDBITS

1) The modern-day submarine looks like a cucumber. Of course today’s subs, which can stay submerged for six months and carry enough nuclear missiles to reduce several cities to a glowing fog of atoms, are unarguably more destructive than even the most beserk cuke. The fact remains, however, that nuke rhyming with cuke is no accident.

2) The first military submarine, the Turtle (1775) was based on a turnip. It didn’t do much. Underwater, culinary warfare fell out of favor for twenty-french years. Fulton designed the Nautilus for the French in 1800. It never went to sea as the humidity of the vessel caused the crew’s bread to go moldy and war without fresh bread was unthinkable.

3) In 1864, the submarine, H.L. Hunley, of the Confederate Navy sank the North’s wooden warship, the Housatonic. This was the first successful sinking of a warship by a submarine. It was also the first successful sinking of a submarine as the Hunley was too close to its own exploding torpedo. Remarkably, no had imagined this occurrence. A month later, Rebel scientists hit upon the idea of simulating a submarine attack with cucumbers and matches. Unfortunately for the South, General Sherman had already begun his destructive march through Georgia. He had specific orders from President Lincoln himself to cripple Confederate submarine research by having his army destroy every cucumber it came across. Once the Union soldiers found how much fun came from fighting cucumbers than a grey coat who’d shoot back, they started uprooting and burning all crops. The South no longer had food to feed its armies. Surrender of all rebel forces followed soon.

4) But the Civil War was a near-run thing for the U.S.A. In 1866, Congress authorized the creation of the Cucumber Underseas Naval Department (CUND.) Over the years, research expanded to investigate undersea applications from all fruits and vegetables.

Chef Paul