Andrea Chesman - The Classic Zucchini Cookbook: 225 Recipes for All Kinds of Squash

THE CLASSIC
ZUCCHINI COOKBOOK

225 Recipes
for All Kinds of Squash Nancy C. Ralston, Marynor Jordan, and Andrea Chesman Illustrations by Laurie Hadlock I dont know when Ive had more fun in the kitchen. Making up recipes for zucchini is almost like childs play. You can do anything with zucchini and get good results. So when I received a phone call asking me if I was interested in taking on a revision of Garden Ways Zucchini Cookbook 25 years after its original publication, I was happy to say yes. Immediately, contracts were signed, zucchini was planted, and meetings were arranged.

At one of those meetings, I happened to mention to a sales manager at Storey Books that I thought zucchini was basically a boring, bland vegetable, and his jaw dropped. But thats a good thing, I hastened to add. Because it means that you can do a lot with it and many people will be glad to buy a cookbook that presents new ideas for preparing this versatile vegetable. That an overabundance of zucchini can be a problem is uncontestable. Every article I have ever read about zucchini mentions a New England joke: Why do Vermonters (or Bay Staters, or Mainers, or whatever you supply your favorite state) have to lock their car doors every August? To keep people from filling their cars with zucchini, of course! I cant verify that a car filling has ever occurred, but I have driven past many driveways that feature an overflowing bushel basket of zucchini and a sign reading Free. Please take one.

Last summer, when I tested recipes for this cookbook and fed my family zucchini just about every single day, I supplied almost all of my testing needs with three plants of zucchini. Thats a lot of zucchini for a minimal amount of gardening effort. My breakthrough moment in the kitchen occurred about a week after attending a zucchini festival, where I heard tales of mock apple pies made with zucchini instead of apples. I followed the directions I was given and was amazed. If you peel zucchini and cook it in lemon juice with enough sugar and spice, you get something very much like apple pie filling. I took the pie to a picnic and completely enjoyed the incredulous looks I received when I told my friends the pie was made with zucchini, not apples.

I had fooled everyone. My son looked up from his slice and told me I should call it Zapple Pie. After the Zapple Pie, we started thinking up titles for other recipes. Zapple Pie was swiftly followed by Zesto Pizza (pesto plus zucchini) and Zingerbread (gingerbread plus zucchini). The naming was fun, and the recipe-testing results were delicious. We moved on to Zesto Pasta Salad and Zapple Strudel, as well as Squoconut Pie, coconut custard pie made with yellow squash and coconut flavoring, but no coconut.

Pesto, pasta, pizza these dishes werent even on the distant horizon when Marynor Jordan and Nancy Ralston wrote the first edition of this book 25 years ago. That was a time when we were still eating an awful lot of ground beef, chicken was mostly roasted on a Sunday, and quality fresh fish was rarely found away from the coast. Whole wheat and bran were tossed with abandon into desserts, healthy eating often meant a punishing lentil loaf, and dinner for the rest of us was a casserole in which cream of mushroom soup featured prominently. Much has changed since then. Our cooking is very much influenced by the foods of the Mediterranean, of which zucchini was an early example. A wider range of fresh vegetables and herbs is available from local supermarkets year-round.

These days, we eat a lot more chicken, fish, and vegetarian meals. When we hunger for a change of pace, we dont think twice about whipping up a Thai curry or a Tex-Mex platter of enchiladas. We grill vegetables all summer, and we roast them all winter. In between, we saut in heart-healthy olive oil, and we are generous with the seasonings, especially garlic. The new recipes in this edition reflect these changes. Of course, many of the old favorites have been retained as well.

Ive heard it said that a true test of friendship is a willingness to accept extra zucchini in September. It is my hope that armed with this cookbook, you will have as much fun in the kitchen as I have had, and that your friendships are always enriched and never strained by an abundance of zucchini and other squash.

Squash has a history of causing confusion. While Europeans were still cultivating only various types of inedible gourds, New World natives had been enjoying squash and pumpkins for at least 7,000 years. The confusion arose when the first European explorers visited the Americas and reported that the native people were cultivating a type of melon.

It was a mistake made again and again; because Europeans had never seen anything like squash, they had no word for it. Nonetheless, the first European settlers in North America, who couldnt be too choosy given their circumstances, readily adopted squash as a food. Native Americans introduced the first European settlers in New England to beans, corn (maize), and pumpkins, the three sisters. They treated them to a seafood chowder made with Indian squash that at least one writer condemned as the meanest of Gods blessings. But after experiencing the New England winter, the Pilgrims came to appreciate pumpkin and squash for their prolific harvests that staved off starvation. Native Americans showed the settlers how to bake whole pumpkins by burying them in the ashes of a fire, then cutting them open and serving them with animal fat and maple syrup or honey.

The Pilgrims improved on this recipe: They opened the pumpkins up; scooped out the seeds and fibers; filled the cavities with milk, sweetener, and spices; replaced the tops; then baked the pumpkins. In addition, a recipe for Pompkin Pie appeared in Amelia Simmonss 1796 cookbook. Ever since, pie has been the predominant use for pumpkins in North America, despite a plethora of pumpkin recipes dating from those early days, including stews and soups, sauce for meat and fish, pancakes, breads, and butters. One can only imagine the flavor of early pumpkin beer, brewed from a combination of pumpkin, persimmons, and maple syrup. Thus, winter squash became and remains a staple in New England. It turns out, however, that botanists dont agree on a firm line dividing pumpkins from winter squash, or winter squash from summer squash.

Scientists have identified four basic types of edible squashes. Cucurbita pepo is noted for its pentagonal stems with prickly spines. This group includes pumpkins and acorn squash, all summer squashes, spaghetti squash, and numerous gourds. Butternut squash, which is one of the best replacements for pumpkin in any recipe, is considered another species entirely (C. moshata, which has pentagonal stems without spines). Cucurbita mixta includes white and green cushaws and the Tennessee sweet potato squash. Cucurbita mixta includes white and green cushaws and the Tennessee sweet potato squash.

From a culinary perspective, the relevant difference among these squashes is how mature they are when we eat them. Summer squash is eaten when immature, before the seeds have developed. Winter squash and pumpkins are eaten fully mature, after seeds and a hard shell have developed. Although winter squash and pumpkin rapidly became staples in New World kitchens, summer squash was not common until the 1950s, when zucchini was reintroduced from Italy. It came via a circuitous route. In the 1820s, a South American squash called the Valparaiso was introduced to Europe.

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