>BTW back in those days all hands used to make salads un-mixed. The cucumber for some magic reason would be in a wee bowl drenched in vinegar (God knows why!). There are older generation who do this still. Maybe it was cos lemons (or ready-bottled LJ) weren't so common, and this was the 2nd best thing to dressing in lemon. But that begs the question: why not all the other salad stuffs?

One of the cultural things which turned out to be very different from home was the salad. First, we take our salads naked - i.e. no dressing, no creamy stuff to smear over the noble plants. Just sprinkle with vinegar, maybe some oil, some salt and optionally sugar. No milky stuff, except in salads like shopska, which is prepared with young cheese (sort of like cottage cheese, but we have a variety of those young cheeses, not pressed nor aged). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopska_salad

The other difference was the habit of serving salad as an appetizer. It's always a side dish in Balkans cuisine.

As for cucumbers (and sour cabbage), I also don't understand the need for vinegar. Yes, they can be pickled with some vinegar, but dousing them is just wrong. I like them the best as done in the summer, just put in a jar with water, a slice of bread and optionally a couple of sour-cherry leaves (why does English have the same word for cherry and cherry, they are completely different species, can't even cross-pollinate).

As for sour cabbage, anyone who does it with vinegar, is an amateur or mass-producer trying to do it on the quick. The natural process gives much better results.