Do you eat cucumbers in summer? Groundbreaking.
TikTok food tends to fall somewhere in between grotesque and Um Within the delicious range. It turns out that recipes designed to go viral aren’t always the best at producing truly enjoyable food.
Like viral feta pasta or something? Honestly, it’s pretty good. But for every good recipe, there’s some utterly disgusting air-fried fruit, or something stuffed, deep-fried, and coated in Doritos that’s disgusting but still gets people’s attention. However, TikTok’s latest obsession with food is actually A great dish. It’s simple and delicious. Basically, this is a recipe for a lightly pickled cucumber salad that people on the app love.
This makes sense because it’s a perfect summer side dish and a regular accompaniment to my fried chicken (another summer favorite).
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As far as I can tell, it all started when TikTok creator @logagm, real name Logan, posted a recipe for the best way to “eat a whole cucumber” in July. Logan, who shares many Korean recipes on the platform, slices cuckoo thinly and lightly marinates it in soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar, MSG, sesame oil, garlic, scallions and sesame seeds. He shakes it up in a quart-sized container, effectively making a quick cucumber salad. The recipe has been viewed more than 9 million times.
Logan seemed to recognize the moment and went on to post tons of different cucumber recipes. Most lean toward Asian flavors and include light pickles or marinades. They’ve all racked up millions of views. Of course, now TikTok is also obsessed with cucumbers. Search around and cucumber salad videos are everywhere on the app. Popular creator Alix Earle has made one. Same goes for @boywithnojob. Seriously, look around and see how many different recipes there are.
This makes sense, considering it’s summer here in the U.S., and cucumbers are very refreshing on a hot day. They also have very little flavor on their own, but bring out the flavor of the marinade nicely. As someone who loves food, and cooking sensible meals with quality ingredients, seeing so many simple, delicious dishes and humble vegetables talked about online (cukes are technically fruits, but, come on, they is a vegetable) which is really cool.
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So while summer continues, TikTok may actually A great place to get side dish recipes. Because sometimes you really just need to eat a whole cucumber.
