Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Have you ever tried to count all the seeds in a cucumber? I can proudly say that I did. When I was 5 years old I sincerely believed that I could do that, but at that timeI wasn't very experienced with numbers and failed. But, I didn't forget about my experiment and decided to fulfill my childhood mission one of these days.I've read several books on this topic and learned some interesting facts. Hope that someone will be interested in it. So, usually one fruit contains 120-150 seeds, and one cucumber plant has thousands of them, though only two or three pericarps have time to ripen. Cucumber's homeland is considered to be distant tropical jungles of India and China. In those countries the cucumber is being used for over 5000 years. Even residents of Ancient Rome and Greece were familiar with this product. Well, what is so attractive in a cucumber? I'd say that it's not only the taste, but the feeling of freshness, aroma and peculiar mellowness. From the Hippocrat times cucumber is considered to be one of the most curative fruits, though one of it's main components is water which comes to 97%. But this "cucumber" water had been filtered through the cucumber fibrous rootlet net, then passed the superfine vessels, which are visible only through a microscope. In other words, this water appeared as a result of a monumental natural "cookery". By the way, cucumber contains almost full set of vitamins, which are are very needed for the healthy life style. Besides that, cucumber holds calcium, potassium, magnesium, iron, phosphorus, silicon, iodine, albumen (protein), organic acid and specific enzymes, which structure is very close to the structure of insulin. Now I understand why in Ancient Greece this friut was pictured on the frescos in old sanctuaries and in Egypt it was portrayed on the sacrificial tables and was put into the tombs of the most famous pharaohs.