Ohirkovyi Salat (огірковий салат, cucumber-smetana salad)

Cucumber is mostly water until salt wakes it up. Then it weeps into the bowl, turns greener, tastes louder, and suddenly supper has its cold summer center. This is the salad that appears before anyone announces it: beside new potatoes, beside grilled fish, beside bread and tomatoes in the litnya kuhnia, the summer kitchen, where the dill always seems to be too much until it is exactly enough.

The one thing that decides the dish is salting the cucumber first. Not for ceremony. Salt pulls out the thin green water that would loosen the smetana into soup, and it seasons the slices all the way through instead of only on the surface. Aunt Nadia wrote, "leave it till it cries," which is very dramatic for a cucumber, but she was right.

Use cold smetana, a whisper of garlic, black pepper if you like, and more dill than looks sensible. Eat it straight away, while the cream is still thick and the cucumber still snaps under your teeth. This is enough for eight guests or one hungry Ukrainian standing by the bowl with a spoon.