By Emily Heil

The Washington Post

Every now and then, cooks collectively crown a new “it” vegetable, as if the produce aisle were the site of Hollywood-style auditions.

Kale, of course, reigned for years. Avocados topped so many toasts they became a generation’s mascot. And cauliflower rocketed to fame, although now that we’re doing everything with it (pizza crust? steak stand-in?), it’s starting to seem like a cruciferous Kim Kardashian (that is, overexposed).

By now, it’s clear that the 15 minutes of fame has arrived for an unlikely main character: the cucumber.

The famously cool vegetable is suddenly hot, and that’s mostly due to Ottowa-based content creator Logan Moffitt, aka “Cucumber Guy,” who kicked off a trend in July with an intriguing catchphrase: “Sometimes you need to eat an entire cucumber.” Since then, he’s racked up millions of views for TikTok videos in which he slices cucumbers into plastic jars, adds dressings and other accoutrements, and then shakes the whole concoction into crunchy, flavorful salads.

Part of the appeal is how easy the operation is — and particularly, how simple Moffitt makes it look. His speedy preparation is helped by the handheld mandoline he effortlessly uses to shave the vegetable into a quart-sized deli container. Mandolines — kitchen tools with a stationary blade attached to a flat surface – offer cooks a way to make fast, even slices. But they are notoriously dangerous, particularly in the hands of novices.

In an interview, 23-year-old Moffitt says he’s aware that he’s not only led the craze for cucumber salads, but also launched a smaller sub-trend: mandoline-related injuries.

“I’ve seen a handful of videos of people who cut their fingers or ended up getting injured,” he says. He’s never experienced one himself. “Thankfully, no — I’ve had a lot of accidents with, like, potato peelers, but never a mandoline.”

Mandoline cuts might just be the modern version of the bagel-slicing injury — that mid-1990s scourge of the yuppie class — and kin to the timeless “avocado hand.”

And now people are documenting their tales of cucumber preparation gone wrong. Bec Hardgrave, a popular fitness content creator, posted a video in which she attempted to re-create Moffitt’s salmon-cream cheese salad using a brand new gadget. She shows herself blithely chatting to the camera and running the cucumber across the mandoline, though she mercifully edited out the moment she cut her hand, instead cutting the video to a hospital where she had sought treatment. (Other videos, however, are more explicit).

Moffitt, though, says there are ways people can stay safe. He notes that while he doesn’t use a safety guard (they typically come with most models), it’s a good idea if you’re a newbie. Guards have spikes on one end that you push into whatever you’re cutting and a plastic rim that shields your fingers far from the blade. “When you first get your mandoline and you’re a beginner with it, you should definitely be using the safety guard,” Moffitt says. Some people swear by cut-resistant gloves, which offer protection while giving you greater control than a safety guard does.

In Hardgrave’s video, she discovers after her hospital visit that there was, in fact, a guard included with her new purchase. And she concludes by warning viewers “just don’t use a mandoline,” to which her off screen companion shoots back, “just use the guard!”

And even though he makes quick work of slicing, “If I was a beginner, I would just take it slowly with those mandolines,” Moffitt says. He recently posted a video underscoring this point. Over audio from that other viral sensation of the summer — TikToker Jools Lebron counseling people to appear “very demure, very mindful” at work — he demonstrates a slow (i.e., safer) technique, offering a pointed look at the camera and the caption “me to yall who aren’t mindful of the mandoline.”

Another trick is to simply accept that you won’t use up the entire cucumber, but rather leave a stub at the end. As my colleague Becky Krystal advises, “a little chunk of leftover vegetable (snack on it! throw it in broth!) is more desirable than a trip to the ER.”

Or, the cucumber pro suggests that people don’t use a mandoline at all, particularly if you’re comfortable with kitchen knives. “You could just use a knife, and that would probably be a little bit less dangerous and a little bit more familiar for people who haven’t used a mandoline before.” That’s the route TikToker Jackson Dean took. After documenting his own attempt at the viral cucumber salad — which led to him cutting off the tip of his finger, he said — he appeared in another video with a prominent bandage. This time, he prepared a salad “the old-fashioned way.” “Much, much safer,” he concluded.

The downside to a knife, though, is that it means there’s a cutting board to clean, and a part of the appeal of Moffitt’s videos is the relatively light dish load they create. Moffitt also frequently uses kitchen shears to cut herbs and other ingredients directly into the plastic vessel. “You just put the lid on and shake it,” he says, “and the only thing you’ve dirtied and in the entire process is the mandoline and the container, so it’s awesome.”

There are plenty of other explanations for the sudden arrival of Hot Cucumber Summer, even with its risk of injury. For one, the vegetable is relatively inexpensive, and its subtle taste makes it a blank slate for all kinds of flavor combinations. In addition to the popular salmon recipe, Moffitt has incorporated the flavors of jalapeño poppers, steak sandwiches and even peanut butter and jelly into different concoctions.

Moffitt says he hasn’t run out of cucumber inspiration. He’s just enjoying the viral fame for now, knowing that the fickle winds of social media food fads could shift anytime.

“My notes app is flooded with a bunch of different ideas, and I know these food trends don’t happen all the time, so I’m just excited to be a part of one and trying to appreciate it while it’s still here,” he says. “I’m still trying to understand this myself completely.”