What is the Cucummaru de San Donato?
The Cucummaru de San Donato is a light cylindrical melon (Cucumis melo) picked immature as a cucumber with variable color – though its classic color light green with dark green splotched stripes. Gentle on the digestion, this slightly fuzzy variety was once highly sought after in and around San Donato di Leccese. While my population was not bitter, bitterness can sometimes occur. It is generally considered a beautiful cucumber-melon that was cultivated in the countryside of San Donato di Lecce, a municipality located in the Valle della Cupa.
When were the Cucummaru de San Donato grown and harvested?
The most recent strain of this variety was stewarded many years by a gentleman name Mario Paglialonga. In keeping with local tradition, Mario would generally sow seeds in early March for transplanting around April. The harvest then began around Mid-May, which is much earlier than other meloncellas or immature melons.
What is the historical background of the Cucummaru de San Donato?
According to Mario, the San Donato and various squash were once cultivated by the whole community. When the fruit was ready to pick, farmers would go around the countryside around 3 a.m. to bring the harvest to the town square by the first light of dawn. Each morning, an impromptu market was held that attracted buyers from all over the province including Leccese, Brindisi, Bari and from the other neighboring areas. This morning routine would make San Donato di Leccese come to life with wagons, motorbikes, bicycles and people talking. Within two hours it was over. With the harvest sold, farmers returned to their labors.
In addition to the morning markets, there was a large fair held each year in May, with the Cucummaru as the primary focus. While the community of San Donato di Lecce was known for producing large quantities of the Cucummaru the fruit up until the 1950s, the immature melons themselves continued to be important to the local economy up until the 1970s. San Donato di Leccese is located in an area called the “Valle della Cupa”, in a slight depression of an alluvial basin of karst origin in the province of Lecce.
What is the controversy concerning the Cucummaru de San Donato?
More recently, in July of 2016, the Leccese News reported that the residents of San Donato were quite upset about something having to do with the term “Cucummaru”. Apparently, a local tour guide book referred to the citizens themselves as “Cucummari”. While San Donato was historically known for cultivating this immature melon, peasants from neighboring towns would slander the residents of San Donato by calling them “cucummari”, meaning “cucumbers” in the local dialect. In Italian, calling someone a large cucumber is a term associated with being gullible, naïve or stupid, so the derogatory term in the guide book understandably offended the community. Outraged, San Donato di Leccese’s mayor demanded that the publication be withdrawn. In addition to publicizing the issue on social media, the residents urged the administration to take legal action to protect the city’s image.
What has Cucumber Shop done since receiving the Cucummaru de San Donato?
After receiving this historically significant variety from a good friend, Cucumber Shop grew this immature melon out three separate seasons, with the third being the summer of 2024. My initial hopes of the variety having a consistent beautiful color and wonderful flavor were upended when I discovered that the color was variable and a portion of the vines produce bitter fruit. For perspective, bitterness in regular cucumbers is generally considered inconvenient when compared with the bitterness exhibited by melons, which can best described as bracingly unpalatable. Knowing that bitterness in melons is primarily genetic, we diligently selected out the bitterness from the population over successive generations and hope that all fruit grown from our current seed remains bitter-free.
Sources:
Sources:
https://biodiversitapuglia.it/lagorosso-custode-del-cucummaro-san-donato/
https://biodiversitapuglia.it/il-cucummaru-di-san-donato-nellelenco-nazionale-dei-pat/
https://biodiversitapuglia.it/varieta-orticole/cucummaru-de-san-donato/
https://biodiversitapuglia.it/cocomero-san-donato-lecce/
https://biodiversitapuglia.it/un-evento-incorniciare-san-donato-lecce/