Vietnamese Cucumbers, ala Instinct

So I know what you’re thinking: Who is Edesia and why is her kitchen being put to the test?
No? You’re wondering why the secretaries on “Mad Men” don’t tell those lechy ad guys to shove it? (I’m just getting started with the series, courtesy of Netflix, so don’t tell me anything good, OK?)
Back to Edesia, whether you were wondering or not. Edesia was (is?) the Roman goddess of food preparation, the benefactress of great banquets, and my muse. I happened upon her while developing what has become the Edesia Cookbook Review, a monthly gathering at a local Barnes & Noble. Each month, I choose a topic and invite local talents to review some relevant books or share where they find inspiration. It’s been a blast, and so it seemed right to call upon Edesia to bless this blog.
A muse may come in handy right now, for it’s becoming clear that “A Platter of Figs” is not written by a micromanager, but a go-with-the-flow kind of guy. Which is good, although frankly not what you expect to find in a cookbook.
I mean, several of my bread baking books would have me taking the temperature of my dough at specific intervals, which I’ve admittedly done at times because the mere directive makes me wonder: Am I there yet? Have I kneaded to 78 degrees? Only 76? Slam, slam. 77. Stretch and fold. 78.
How…curious.
So I had to look twice when deciding to make the Vietnamese Cucumbers – or, in the book’s typography – vietnamese cucumbers. OK, we’re going to get this out of the way right now. I work in newspapers, I live by a stylebook, I once was an English major and believe that there is a time and place for capital letters. Such as in book titles, proper names and recipes.
So anyway, I was looking over the recipe for Vietnamese Cucumbers, since the garden is spewing cukes like a Lucy episode, and it essentially is a list of ingredients, the only specificity being 4 large cucumbers and the length of the piece of ginger to be julienned: 1 inch.
Otherwise, it’s a process of tossing the sliced cukes with some fish sauce, salt and pepper, palm sugar, hot peppers, lime juice, sprigs of mint and basil, and some slices of scallions or sweet onion, depending on which way you swing.
I went the baby step route, starting with a few drops of fish sauce – easy to overdo and impossible to undo -- and half a jalapeno. Eh. Then I went back out to the garden to snap off another pepper. The rest was a case of squirting and tasting, tossing and tasting, and then letting it all sit and meld and marinate, which led to another round of dribbling and tasting.
It was a recipe, but far more reliant on instinct than teaspoons. The result was delicious. I will make this salad again
But it will be different, won’t it?