BlatherMunch 26: zucchini nights

OOOOOH! What a beauty, I've never seen one as big as that before,
Oh Oh! What a beauty, it must be two foot long or even more.
And it's such a lovely color, so big, and round, and fat,
I've never seen a zucchini grow quite as big as that,
Oh Oh! What a beauty, I've never seen one as big as that before.
           ~~ Tim Curry, The Zucchini Song

In Ferndale, our family scraped the weeds off the garden plot each Spring, got a nearby farmer to come by, plow and disc the dirt, then we planted in it, the ugliest and most un-designer of vegetables in the vegetable universe.

In this day when radishes have appellations like sauternes, this 1950's vegetable matter was hybred for maximum bulk.

There were beets, not golden ones, Chioggias, or babies, but beta vulgaris which we left in the ground until they were big as soft balls and as tasty. And carrots, not tiny, skinny sweet ones, but big orange horsefingers known as "dicers.")

No edible peapods... but round English peas to be shelled, canned and then mixed at a later date with the carrots and served in a long out-of-fashion dish called "Peas & Carrots." Stringbeans were beans and thick, not haricots and thin, green not purple, despite they were known as Blue Lakes.

The best attribute a veggie could have in those days was BIG. We'd get heavy producing varieties out of the Burpee's catalog with names like 'Tennessee Honkin' or "'Whale Boots', Big Dump', or 'Bull Tush."

If the Big Boy tomatoes grew so huge you could only get one in a jar, that got you bragging rights.

When you said 'squash' back in those days, we said hubbard which we, as young boys, carved into forts or carriages pulled around by Labrador retrievers. Or yellow long necks the size of banjos, or patty-pans like flying saucers which we let grow to the diameters of dinner plates.

The garden was a big ugly food producing place. When it didn't smell like chicken shit, it produced family food staples, damn it. On late September nights, with great toil (and without a modern stapler) these staples were stuffed into jars and cans, and cooked to shit in a kettle.

The whole dreary process from spreading the chicken shit to being force-fed peas & carrots turned many of us against vegetables for the rest of our lives.

I remember well when zucchinis hit Ferndale. They were touted to be "gor-may" and Eye-talian and folks didn't trust 'em at first. They seemed flighty and lightweight as we imagined Italians to be because we'd never actually met any.

Besides, zucchinis didn't taste like much, (this was before the days of basil).

But they grew like hell, and they grew BIG. After discovering this, everybody put in hills and hills of them, and produced enough zukes in Ferndale to supply Bellingham, but, problem was: Bellingham already grew enough to supply Seattle.

It was a problem.

We tried. People found creative uses like substituting zucchinis for apples in pie, or ricking the zukes up in the backyard and using them for firewood; some shredded them and blew them into the attic as insulation.

(This was 20 years before the invention of the battery-operated personal vibrator, so perhaps they were used as "marital aids" by the unsatisfied wives and the so-called "spinsters" of the era -- according to the oral traditions of the male high school population, they were used that way, though I have no other direct knowledge of such things).

None of these things dented the zucchini surplus. After awhile, even the pigs turned up their snouts at them, holding out for the basil that wouldn't be discovered by the Ferndale citizenry for decades.

Therein started a guerilla zucchini war and summer squash-related crime wave that continues on the North American continent wherever zukes are found.

Since no one would ever steal a zucchini or buy one, they were really hard to get rid of -- a thorny problem that we're still dealing with in the 21st century.

It was sort of reverse robbery. You'd answer the door and find no one there but a grocery bag full of zucchinis. Sometimes they were on fire.

You couldn't leave a car unlocked for fear of receiving a "bag from hell."

(We once found a baby abandoned on our front porch and my mother was so grateful it wasn't more zucchinis, she named it Zeke and raised him as one of her own).

What's worse than the actual surplus of the vegetable is its derision and the proliferation of jokes -- the zucchini jokes of summer are the fruitcake jokes of Christmas. They are to gardeners what drummer jokes are to musicians.

Pumpkins, other squashes, sweet potatoes, cucumbers — all produce prodigious amounts of pithy flesh, yet are never as maligned as zukes. It's sad and it's wrong.

Zucchini "Apple" Pie

4 cups zucchini, peeled, seeded and sliced
1 1/4 cups white sugar
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tbsp cream of tartar
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tbsp butter, diced
1 9-inch double crust pie shell (store-bought or your own recipe)

1. Boil zucchini until tender. Drain and let stand in cold water for about 5 minutes, then drain.
2. Add sugar, flour, cinnamon, cream of tartar, lemon juice, salt and nutmeg. Mix well. Put into pie crust. Dot with butter. Put top crust on.
3. Bake at 400 degrees F for 40-50 minutes. Makes 1 pie.

Comments

[sparky]

I love zucchini..you can give me all of yours, BlaM. My fave is zucchini bread, but I also have used it in lasagna, saute', baked, roasted, etc.
Last year I had a garden and I had just one plant, because I know better than to have more than that.

Love those pictures...when I was up in Palmer, Alaska on a visit, their visitor's center had a garden and the squash families and the cabbages were the size of Volkswagons. The delphiniums were about 10' feet high.

[joanie]

Not a big fan of cooked veggies unless they're green inside: beans, peas and spinach. Go figure.

Raw? I like 'em all. (except for the squash family)

Sparky, I'll give you any zukes I get as well.

[nancy]

Bart, you're a fool with no sense of humor...

[joanie]

Yeah, Bart! So there.

Not to change the subject from those riveting zukes (I prefer cukes!) but

Bender on Palin:
"Another governor of limited experience who was a cheerleader" and people want to have a drink with.

Now just who do you think Bender is comparing Palin to...

gosh, I just can't imagine.

Okay, back to zukes and cukes! Let's take a poll: how many of you scholarly conservatives think Palin prefers zukes over cukes?

[chucks]

Pretty sure that fried or grilled zucchini goes better with mooseburger, bear meatloaf or reindeer sausage. Cukes are like dimocrats and give us conservatives nasty gas. You just gotta chew 'em up n spit 'em out.

[joanie]

Oh, is that what she does with those thick zukes? Given her rather thin resume, and given that barracudas aren't usually found cooking in the kitchen when they could be killing wolves from helicopters, I figured she'd find a more adventurous use for the damn things.

I'm sure she cooks 'em, chucks. (hahahaha)

[joanie]

Hell, maybe you're right. Maybe she uses cukes for ... well, you know.

Anything in a pinch, huh?

Can't always get what you want, huh, babe?

[joanie]

It just occurred to me:

if she's on the road with ancient mccain, she'll probably need that zuke or cuke...cause he sure ain't gonna come through.

But after watching the convention wherein he was watching her ass, I'm sure he'll give it the old college try. Bet he was fifth from the bottom of his class in that category too.

Seems to me about the only thing they really have in common is killing... Now that's something to chew on.

[joanie]

Make that "moose-jerky to chew on."

Okay, you can have your blog back, Michael. I'm out of here. Another beautiful day!

[chuck]

Geez joanie
I did not realize how excited you were over this zuccini/cucumber thing. I knew that you had many a lonely moment, but dayum. I am sorry I posted. You need to find a partner that you don't need to fertalize or plug in or at least make one up. We will never know.

[joanie]

Thanks for your good wishes, chucks. Being the typical repug guesser, low info kinda guy you are, I know you means well.

Keep trying. You might hit the target with me eventually.

Loves you like a bro, chucks.

[Duffman]

I say she prefers nukes! :) [sorry Bla'M, couldn't help myself]

[DT]

Blathering Michael, I love how this is a political blog as well as about media. You do a terrific job, and I nearly always agree with you. You do so many different things well, it's unbelievable sometimes.

Sometimes you talk about food, sometimes you talk about cable TV hosts. Sometimes you talk about radio hosts. Sometimes you're just funny and extremely entertaining.

Nobody else has the guts to step up to you and tell you the truth. Your blog is one of the best in the blogosphere. Thanks for all you do. Can I send you a check?

[DT]

Yeah, having a Governor who was a secessionist is much worse than having one who was the lead attorney who got the huge settlement against the tobacco companies.

[RiceRocketRicky]

Re; zucchini song... You all are a bunch of perverts... I like that!

Re; the Sarah part... Face it, you lefties are in the toilet... Unless this 'affair' thing turns out.

'Bout time for a Dori thread dontcha' think? Or is he behind in his payments?

Rick

[blathering michael]

Dori is not paid up. And I won't make any more glowing posts about him until I get a check.

[RiceRocketRicky]

Hey BM, I'm seriously honored. I lurk here alot. Your group of regulars are great fun. I've posted exactly twice, and both times I've gotten a response from the HNIC his own self... Makes me feel welcome.. Thanks.

Rick

[RiceRocketRicky]

Uhh... You'd take a check from a weasel like that???

[KS]

Re: Palin - the affair thing is a dud - no legs. You'd look better if you held your fire until something scandalous or lie that is vetted about her is confirmed. The leftwing media already is in a state of FUBAR.

It is like crying wolf too many times and it is getting to look that way now - unless some new revelation like in the firing of the sheriff thing is confirmed.

Don't think the Clinton's are being all that concerned about Palin (they may be later if McCain gets in and it affects Hillary's run for President in 2012) - the Clinton's enemies are the progressives within the party that hijacked the nomination from Hillary.

[superstuff]

Didn't Woody Allen use big vegetables?