Weird zucchini

[gfweb]

A coworker gave me two weird zucchini.

A round one, Mexican origin, called a tatome.  It gets nice flavor when sauteed till browned

 

And this thing, Sicilian origin, called (by her) a googootz.  I'm tempted to call it the Sonny Corleone.

Cooked-up, it just tasted green. Not much there.

[heidih]

The old chesnut "variety is the spice of life"?? The skinny one screams "no flavor"  In general with zuke I am a Melissa Clark convert on the thin slice and broil.  See "In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite" pg 58 zuke  w/ mint & garlic  (kinda covet your stove)

[gfweb]

1 minute ago, heidih said:

The old chesnut "variety is the spice of life"?? The skinny one screams "no flavor"  In general with zuke I am a Melissa Clark convert on the thin slice and broil.  See "In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite" pg 58 zuke  w/ mint & garlic  (kinda covet your stove)

I love a caramelized zuc.

And I love that stove. The lowest level Blue Star. No bells or whistles. Minimal electronics. Just heat.

[kayb]

For the second time this summer, I got hold of some zucchini which had a distinct cucumber smell when grated. I tasted a bit of the raw grated stuff, as I had begun to doubt myself and wondered if I'd grabbed cucumbers instead of zucchini. Nope, zucchini. Smell disappeared after it was mixed into fritters and fried. Tasted like regular zucchini.

 

 

[blue_dolphin]

17 hours ago, gfweb said:

A coworker gave me two weird zucchini.

...

And this thing, Sicilian origin, called (by her) a googootz.  I'm tempted to call it the Sonny Corleone.

Cooked-up, it just tasted green. Not much there.

 

I remember @Franci showed us a similar looking squash called a trombetta during her food blog from Monaco and here in the Summer Squash thread.  There has also been some discussion of growing trombetta over in the gardening thread.  I wonder if they are similar or related?

[Franci]

Ahhh, ahh, googootz, love it. I remember when I used to work in NY a colleague of mine said to me, in English, that he won a competition for his « googootz », I had to hold myself for not laughing. I didn’t want to be mean, it was just unexpected. It’s like speaking in English and suddenly saying something in Sicilian dialect. That is known in Italian as zucchina siciliana, zucchina lunga (long) or italianized cucuzza. In all South of Italy « cucuzza » in dialect means zucchini and in colloquial terms in Italian it also means « head ».  The long zucchini is generally peeled and cooked into a soup. The most famous, you can google it, is pasta con i tenerumi. The tenerumi are the zucchini shoots. 

 

The zucchina trombetta, trompette for the french, is totally different. The skin is softer, no need to peel . 

Edited September 16, 2019 by Franci (log)

[pastrygirl]

My mom with the zucchetta that got away ...

 

 

[andiesenji]

In the '70s, my Italian neighbors in Canoga Park grew a lot of squash, lots of zucchini, 3 or 4 varieties and while a lot were picked young, some were allowed to attain huge sizes, like the "marrows" in the UK.

They would split the large ones, scrape out the seed mass and put it all into a pressure cooker with peppers and "sedano di Verona" or "raduce di sedano" which I learned was celeriac. They knew it in English as celery root and liked the name celeriac. 

The mature seeds were tough when raw but after pressure cooking were softer and they cooled the vege mix and put it through a food mill so it was a puree and then added a meat broth to it, often from pork and it was delicious.  And no tomatoes in that soup.  

The zucchini was sliced about 3/4 inch thick and grilled after tossing with olive oil, lemon juice and zest, crushed pepper and chopped fresh basil, thyme, oregano and salt rubbed into the herbs. They used a granulated toasted garlic to "finish" after grilling. When I grilled squash like this, I used the Penzey's granulated garlic.  I never tried my hand at making the soup but thinking about it now, and having a great electric pressure cooker, I think I will give it a try.  The local produce market often has "oversized" zucchini.