September 13 would have been Roald Dahl’s 100th birthday, and to mark the occasion, Morrison’s have started selling snozzcumbers in store, for just 41p each.
Fans of the BFG will remember that the kindly giant refused to eat people. Instead, he existed on a diet of snozzcumbers, washed down with a glass of Frobscottle.
The snozzcumber was a fruit that resembled a cucumber – with a few glaring exceptions.
As Sophie describes it in the book, the snozzcumber ‘was about half as long again as an ordinary man but was much thicker. It was as thick around its girth as a perambulator. It was black with white stripes along its length. And it was covered all over with coarse knobbles.’
The Morrison’s snozzcumber is a little more palatable – there’s not even a hint of frogskin and rotten fish.
In fact, the eagle-eyed among you will have spotted that they look a lot like longer, thicker, wonkier cucumbers. Which they are.
They were grown in Holland to have a thicker, spikier skin. They are, on average, about 16 inches long.
Our guess is, they’ll probably taste a lot like cucumber, but, with kids, it’s all about how you sell it.
‘We’re bringing a bit of the magic of Roald Dahl’s story into our stores and celebrating this humble cucumber in all its knobbly, wonky glory,’ said Morrison’s cucumber buyer (that’s an actual job) Rebecca Burns. ‘Unlike Snozzcumbers, children will find this variety delicious – not a hint of cockroaches or slime wanglers.’
‘We’re anticipating they will become a lunchbox staple for kids going back to school this September and will excite a new generation about wonky veg at the same time.’
Morrisons is trialling the speciality cucumber all this week across its UK stores. If they prove a hit with shoppers, the supermarket says it will consider making them a permanent fixture.
The snozzcumbers cost 41p each and a donation will be made to Roald Dahl’s The Marvellous Children’s Charity for every one sold.
Read more and see a picture at: metro.co.uk
