I always thought that my mother plucked this dip from a 1980s suburban ladies’ home magazine, but she recently told me I had no idea what I was talking about. “Hey, my cucumber recipe came from my last apartment building before dad and I were married,” she emailed me. “I walked into my neighbor’s place and her roommate had just made it and I could smell the cool cucumber. She won a prize at a county fair for it.”

The judges at that mid-1960s Boone County Fair knew what they were doing. My mother’s co-opted it as her own and used it to improve four decades worth of back-yard barbecues. Like her, I’m a sucker for the light scent of the cucumbers. I’ve always thought of it as the cooler, easy going brother of sour cream and onion dip.

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