The posh squash

OF ALL THE CUCURBITS, IS THERE ANY TASTIER OR MORE VERSATILE IN THE KITCHEN THAN THE ZUCCHINI?

- Chris Stafford

In early autumn this year we enjoyed the gift that keeps on giving: a prolific crop of zucchinis. For a while there they lurked under leaves all over the garden and had to be picked every day. While I happily perfected my zucchini soup and my partner did the same with her zucchini tart, we started to run out of ways to use the proliferation of gourds. It was the green veg of choice for many meals and we often had pesto with zoodles (spiralised zucchini) in place of pasta. We gave them to friends and family and still had more than enough.

A zucchini is essentially an immature cylindrical marrow, which is what the fully grown version is called in Britain. Take your eye off it and it will grow up to a metre in length but is best enjoyed when around 20cm, well before it becomes woody and full of water.

While treated in the kitchen as a vegetable, like the tomato it’s botanically classed as a fruit — specifically, a berry or pepo, the swollen ovary of a flower. Both male and female zucchini flowers, as well as the leaves, may also be eaten.

AN OVERVIEW

Zucchini — Italian for “little squash” (or zucca) — was first described by that name in Milan in 1901. Oddly enough, the word courgette, used in the UK, New Zealand and other countries, is also a diminutive derived from the French word courge, meaning “gourd” or “marrow”.

Like all squash, zucchini originated in the Americas. It was introduced to Italy where it was cultivated widely then travelled back to the US with Italian immigrants in the late-19th and early-20th centuries.