Zucchini or courgette

"the Italian's answer to cabbage." Jane Grigson

I know I'm a failure at gardening when I read countless articles telling me that zucchini are so easy to grow and that you only need to plant two or you will have a glut. Well I've tried a few times now with very, very little to show for it. Nothing at all last year. I currently have something in the squash family growing - it has self-seeded and I will let it grow. Only time will tell if I get anything though. I think I would welcome a glut. You can pickle them after all.

I also know that when I buy them I always buy too many and they go off. They don't last all that long in the fridge and go all slimy and horrible and have to be thrown out. Which is why I am talking about zucchini today, because I have a few in the fridge and if I don't use them very soon they will indeed go off. They may have done already. I hardly dare look,

Nevertheless I do use them quite a lot, though truth to tell I sort of wonder why. Because they don't taste of much. Although maybe this is because I don't grow them and so never have the opportunity to eat them raw when they are tiny, or indeed, pick them when they are very small and fresh. Bert Greene has a beautiful little story of his mother, not a gardener, who had been called in to look after him once when he was recuperating from an operation. I suppose it's a bit homey American, but I am reproducing it here because it touched me somehow, even though I am not God minded as his mother obviously was.

They used to wander his garden beds and on her last day of nursing her son they found some zucchini:

"Pointing to a newly opened squash blossom, she lifted the flower and gave a small cry. There on the ground were the first zucchini of the season. Five of them, tiny as a child's fingers and still fuzzy in their green wrapping.

Without a second thought I picked one, then another, and handed them to my mother. On our knees, we ate the tender young squash raw. The taste? Forgive me, but almost twenty years later it is still impossible to describe.

'Kiddo', said my mother at last, 'this makes you know there really is a God.' She had never been so right in her life." Bert Greene

Which leads him to say later on in his introduction to his zucchini chapter:

"In the kitchen the aim is to cook zucchini quickly. In the garden, to pick it early!"

So maybe very tiny ones - that you will never find in a shop or market, do taste different.

Yotam Ottolenghi - the current vegetable king - loves to use them but does recognise their lack of taste, and prefers to use them as vessels, as he puts it. He is not alone because he quotes a chef with whom he once worked saying:

"They're bland, watery and remind me of old people's homes," She would not use them at all.

Which is bit extreme. I doubt that old people's homes are as adventurous.

Whilst not feeling quite as anti as his colleague he does, however, recognise their neutrality:

"In terms of taste and texture, courgettes are a bit on the lame side. They lack the firm body and sweet depth of flavour of, say, acorn squash, which is a member of the same species. They can also be watery and fleshy, especially when left to grow too long or not really fresh."

These days they are pretty fashionable though. I think there are a number of reasons and one of those is their very blandness which makes them very versatile - like potatoes, pasta and rice. Then there is the spiraliser which makes it look like green bordered spaghetti and which you can then cook like pasta (well very briefly or it will go mushy) with a sauce. And here again its blandness comes into its own.

And finally there are the flowers:

"but mention courgette flowers, the ultimate vessel, and people will get so excited that they'll willingly pay £3 a piece at Borough Market and think it a bargain." Yotam Ottolenghi

Trendy cookery books have lots of recipes for stuffed zucchini flowers - first find your flowers. I don't think I have ever seen them in the shops or at the market. So grow your own. Then they are fiddly - watch out for the insects lurking in the bottom, and they have a tendency to close up apparently which would make it all a bit difficult. Once stuffed you have to dip them in batter and deep fry - which means serving at once. This is the kind of fiddly food that I no longer do. But good to have in a restaurant where somebody else has done all the work. I think I had some in Italy, but I don't really remember them as being that wonderful.

Maybe the real reason for their modern popularity though is the influence of the Middle East where they are mostly roasted, or grilled. And this gives them a whole new dimension. I think Delia's roast Mediterranean vegetable combo also gave them a big boost. And if you don't like egg plant/aubergine which has a much stronger and more distinctive, some would say acquired, taste, you can substitute zucchini.

Zucchini is, of course, one of those American plants brought back to Europe by the Conquistadores. Although it was not as it was today. What it is today is a result of development by the Italians of the north in the nineteenth century. I do not remember eating them at all as a child. Jane Grigson credits Elizabeth David with introducing them to the English. I'm not even sure that I encountered them in France until I worked there as an au pair whilst a university student. There I found it as an ingredient in ratatouille which I came to love and which I try to make at least once a year.

I gather Britain suffered a bit of a courgette drought (in the UK it is called courgette) because the crop in Spain failed. What I wonder will they do after Brexit? It's interesting to contemplate isn't it, because a lot of their food comes from Europe now. Will their diet change?

So what am I going to cook tonight? I looked for inspiration and found lots of interesting ways to use them but not for a main meal. So I think I'm going to fall back on a quiche with maybe a breadcrumb and pine nut topping. The zucchini will be grated and squeezed dry - my favourite method of dealing with them. Or a gratin, if I have enough chunks of ham to include in it. The recipes I found were all interesting but sort of variations on themes of frittata, salads, pasta and tarts. I did find a very interesting sounding dip though, which I might try next time I need a dip. It was in one of the Guardian's articles but came from Hemsley and Hemsley. It was called zucchini and apple hummus.

When I first came to Australia I went into a greengrocer's and asked for courgettes. He looked at me blankly. We and the Americans call it zucchini and I have grown used to this. Obviously this is because of our large Italian immigrant population. The New Zealanders call it courgette. Which is interesting.