Zucchini, known as courgettes in parts of Europe and Australia, and as summer squash to some gardeners. Because that's what they are - summer squash. While they're not as closely related as cabbage and its cultivars, all summer squash are descended from giant pumpkins. They're thought to be native to central or south America, and have been cultivated in the area for about five thousand years - possibly longer.
During the Great Exchange (the botany/history geek term for all the plants that got moved around after Columbus discovered the new world), pumpkins and some other types of summer squash were taken to Europe. They didn't catch on very quickly. In the 1800s, Italians started tinkering with the different summer squash and developed what we call the zucchini. Roughly translated, zucchini means 'little squash' in Italian. The French began using them soon after, and they didn't get popular in Britain until the 1950s and 1960s when food writers began discussing them. I assume from there they spread to the Americas, Canada, and Australia, though I can find no information on it. (Zucchini apparently are too low-class and/or recent to interest food historians.) Linguistically, I assume Italians brought zucchini to America and Britons took courgettes to Australia.
Technically speaking, zucchini are not vegetables. They are fruits. But then, the term 'vegetable' is meaningless in botany/biology, so there you go. They are best eaten when immature - less than 1 foot or 20cm in size - and very fresh. They don't store for crap, particularly not when cooled. (Though I bet you could freeze the cleaned, shredded meat.) They are members of the Curcurbitaceae (gourd) family, related to those pumpkin I mentioned as well as squash of all kinds, cucumbers, watermelon, and, haha, loofahs. (Yes, the bath scrubbie.)
I've tried to figure out why they grow like crazy, and can't find any explanation in any of my plant books (of which I have several dozen). They were developed to grow in a temperate climate on the warm side, but they grow well all over the place, even up into Canada and Scotland and Germany, which aren't as warm in the growing season sense, even if they are temperate. But zucchini still practically blast out of the ground and spit fruit at you. The only thing I can think of is, they're a recent species, meaning they're a hundred-odd years old as opposed to ten thousand. Because they were bred so recently, it's possible they respond to pests and climate better. (This was discussed, in part, over here.) Or it could just be that they're crazy. SOMEONE should research it, though, because the world could use more food plants that grow so easily.
And, by request, a recipe. Predictably, it is for zucchini bread, but several folks claim it's the best zucchini bread they've ever had. (Don't ask me. I hate zucchini bread.) It was slipped to me as a wedding present and is kind of a secret recipe, so, uh, don't tell anyone you have it.
L'S ZUCCHINI BREAD:
-3 eggs
-1 cup vegetable oil
-2 cups white sugar
-3 cups all purpose flour
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-1 teaspoon salt
-1 teaspoon baking powder
-1 teaspoon cinnamon
-3 cups grated zucchini, with the water drained off
OPTIONAL:
-1 cup nuts any will work but walnuts were used
-1 tablespoon vanilla
beat eggs, oil, and sugar together; add all dry ingredients, zucchini, nuts. Pour into two greased loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes to one hour. Freezes well.
This puts me in mind of a joke I heard once in New England: During summer, people don't lock their cars because of tourists - they lock them to keep their friends from filling their cars with zucchini. (I used to say the same thing in Hawaii about avocados when they were ripe, but that's another blog post.)
11 comments:
You can make any zucchini bread better by the addition of either chocolate chips or raisins (depending on how healthy you want to get). Shredded zucchini is a great addition to almost any bread like recipe, it adds some nutrition and a lot of moisture.
I keep telling Durwood he can plant zucchini if he can figure out how to plant half a plant. But then I'm the one who planted a patty pan squash (my fave summer squash) that grew so many fruits that it uprooted itself. Now I get zucks and patty pans from the farmer's market.
Bells, I have a zucchini cookie with chocolate chips recipe if you're interested.
I don't know about other parts of Australia but in NSW, we call them zucchini too!
I think I will try your secret recipe, sounds good.
My favorite thing to do with grated zucchini is make gratin hashzerole.
Sautee the grated meat until it sweats out most of its water. Likewise, sautee onions, garlic, ginger, whatever you like to put in things to Make Them Food. Mix in several beaten eggs and grated cheese (or a can of cream-of soup), pour in a wide flat pan, and put a layer of cheese slices on top, not quite covering all the filling. Breadcrumbs are another optional topper.
Bake until it smells good and everything is agreeably brown. Works best with a layer of hash less than 2" thick; thinner ones bake more evenly.
I hate zucchini, and zucchini bread, but I like hashzerole. Proving that if you put enough cheese on anything, it becomes edible. :->
Mmm, sounds lovely:) I love courgettes. We had them sliced diagonally and steamed the other day. Possibly my new fav way to eat them. The real fav way is sliced and fried with garlic. Yum:)
I'm not a fan of the zucchini bread either. We only made the mistake of growing them once. I think neighborhoods should get together and nominate one person to grow the plant each year and then share the fruits.
YOu can tell someone has no friends whatsoever if you see them buying zucchinis in August.
Shall I dig out my recipe for chocolate zucchini cake? Moist and rich and doesn't taste healthy at all.
Zucchini can be frozen, either shredded fresh or boiled like pumpkin meat.
i've never heard anyone here call it courgette except in reference to it being an alternative name!
Just picked a massive one from the garden. Oops. A few days of not getting home til after dark and suddenly there's a monster that is going straight to the chooks.
Thanks for the recipe again!
Hey, question, so, the markets here in the Philippines don't sell zucchini almost at ALL. They have cucumbers. They have loofah (while it's still edible, before it goes all scrubby). They have ampalaya, which is like zucchini's evil twin from an alternate dimension.
So, I'm wondering. Does zucchini not like a tropical climates? Or do I just need to get my hands on some seeds? I MISS zucchini.
I remember once, my mom planted so many plants that at the end of the summer we had a baseball game featuring a bunch of 2 1/2 foot Zucchinis and the tomatoes we couldn't keep up with harvesting.
And then we played in the sprinklers for at least an hour.
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