[Hothouse Cucumber, Burpless Cucumber, Seedless Cucumber, English Cucumber]
These cucumbers are grown on vines that produce only female flowers. Since the flowers have no way to get knocked up they produce seedless fruit. Seeds to grow them are expensive because to produce them rare vines that have one or more male flowers must be found.
Growing the vines take special care, and even in California they have to be grown in hothouses or screened buildings. Care must be taken that bees and other pollinating insects cannot access the flowers. Should a bee that has visited sexually functional cucumber plants outside get in, hybrid seeds will develop. In Southern California, these have been pretty much totally displaced by the Persian Cucumber, which tastes better and is much more economical to produce.
They are never waxed because with so thin a skin these cukes are normally not peeled. This makes them highly perishable due to dehydration and consequent rot. Southern California high volume produce markets sell them and call them "European Cucumber". Larger straighter varieties are shrink wrapped in plastic for longer shelf life so they can be shipped to distant markets and are called English Cucumbers.
The larger of the photo specimens was 13 inches long (uncurled) 1-3/4 inches diameter at the thickest point and weighed 10 ounces. Typical shrink wrapped specimens are a little bigger but generally weigh less than a pound.
More on Cucumbers.
Some people claim to be bothered by gas from regular cucumbers and the problem is said to originate from the seed mass. Since these have little seed mass they are called "Burpless". Personally, I eat piles of standard issue cucumbers and Persian cucumbers without gas problems, and haven't heard anyone else complain either - perhaps the English are "different"? Well, we know they are, but we're just talking about cucumbers here.
Because their seed mass is small and not watery the European cucumber is good for applications using whole slices such as sandwiches and salads. Since they are sold unwaxed, the skin can be left on or peeled decoratively to add visual appeal. The downside is that they have less cucumber flavor than the standard green blimps or pickling kerbeys and what flavor there is dominated by the skin.
ck_euroz 070915 - www.clovegarden.com