A Crooked Quest
Second week, second post, second writer. This week, the spotlight is focused on a very simple vegetable. This vegetable is a real all-rounder, it can be found in cuisines all around the world. Not only is the vegetable used in various cuisines but it can also be prepared or used in many different ways.
In France this vegetable is a key ingredient for the famous dish 'ratatouille'. The Bulgarians fry plaques of the vegetable and serve them with a dill yoghurt sauce. In Mexico the vegetable is used for the stuffing of quesedillas. In India the vegetable is often used in curry's. In my parents kitchen it would often be used for a soup with a blue cheese as a topping. If you haven't guessed already, this week we're dealing with the vegetable zucchini... or was it courgette?
Zucchini or Courgette?
Two names that are completely seperate from each other and are used in a variety of different countries around the world. Zucchini is the more often used term for this vegetable so to avoid confusion, from now on I will use the word zucchini. You may have already guessed it because of its dramatic sound, the name zucchini originates from Italy. Which comes in handy because Italy is also the place with the most 'roots' and richest history regarding this vegetable.
Zucchini is the Italian naming for the vegetable but the name is used in countries such as the United States, Australia, Sweden and Germany. The word zucchini is a diminutive of the Italian word 'zucca', which means squash or pumpkin. The word zucchini wasn't settled at once, there was a bit of a hassle going on in Italy (where else) regarding the name of this vegetable.
The Accademia della Crusca is located in Florence and implemented the word zucchino, which is the masculine form, so the whole of Northern Italy used the word zucchino. But in the Treccani, the Italian Encyclopedia of Science, Letters and Arts, (first published between 1926 & 1936) the feminime word is used, which is zucchina. I will explain later how the name zucchini settled and became famous around the world.
The people in France decided not to join the 'Italian party', the French kept it simple. The word courge means 'marrow' or 'gourd', so the word 'courgette' is a diminutive of the word 'courge'. This French version is used in countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, The Netherlands, Ireland and South Africa.
Courgette grown in the Southern of France near Toulouse
History of Zucchini
Zucchini is part of the squash group, more specifically the summer squash group which are squashes that are harvested when immature while the peel is still soft and edible. The squash origins from South America and Mexico, archeologists Bruce Smith and Wesley Cowan of the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History located in Cincinnati, Ohio found squash seeds in Mexico that dated back to 9.000 and 4.000 B.C. It is unknown if the squash was used for consumption at that time.
The Inca's, Maya's and Aztecs were the first known people to use squash for culinary purposes. At that time no distinctions were made between squash with different lengths, colors, size, thickness etc. etc... The tribes didn't taste a significant difference between each squash so for them it was all the same. Squash was a popular vegetable and dish with the Inca's, Maya's and Aztecs because it took minimal effort to grow and it was superbly nutricious.
When Mr. Columbus discovered America in 1492 the Europeans came in contact with various new foods, including this weird looking squash vegetable. At first the Europeans thought it was a melon. Colombus brought back a lot of different seeds including the seeds from various squashes. Back then the vegetable didn't look as consistent as it looks today. It had all various kinds of shapes and colors.
The herbologists in Europe got to work with all these new species of herbs and plants and ensured that each new plant or herb was classified in a category or family. The then known zucchini got classified as the genus Cucurbita that is part of the gourd family, also known as Cucurbitaceae. The first designation of Cucurbita in a cook book dates back to the midst 16th century. Because the vegetables was used by more and more people, chefs started to experiment with it, which eventually led to the naming C. pepo that stands short for Cucurbita Pepo. This specie is a cultivated plant of the genus Cucurbita, which means summer squash.
So:
Family: Cucurbitaceae
Genus: Cucurbita (Squash)
Species: Cucurbita Pepo (Summer squash)
The Italian 'Schifezza'
Fast forward to 1844 when the first literal usage of the word zucchini was found in a cookbook that originates from Tuscany. The Italians were the first to experiment with the vegetable for culinary purposes. But the word zucchini was still not rock solid at that time. There were many cookbooks that included recipes with the zucchini but each Italian chef came up with his/her own naming and description for the vegetable.
In the cookbook Trattato di Cucina by Giovanni Vialardi (1854), head chef at the court of Vittorio Emanuele II in Turin, multiple recipes refer to zuccotti which is discribed as a gourd with the size of an egg. Giovanni Nelli uses the word zucchette in his cookbook, which he identifies as gourds with different shapes and sizes from just after the flower drops off. He also presents these as 'petit courges' in the same cookbook.
We can go on forever unitl we run out of Italian name variants for zucchini but it will probably make it more confusing than it already is. The reason that there were so many different namings for the vegetable was because until the late 1900s the Italian language was scattered, every region had it's own dialect. The Roman I Promessi Sposi that was released in 1877 by Alessandro Manzoni is seen as the turning point for the Italian Language. This was because the book was written in the Florentine dialect and not in the old traditional language. Which brings us back to the Accedemia della Crusca in Florence.
Zucchini grown in Northern Italy near Orescio, Lago Maggiore. Nicknamed climbing zucchini because of its weird shapes
Immigration of Zucchini
If you remember well, the Accedemia implemented the word zucchino and the Treccani used the word zucchine, both around 1930. Meanwhile, between 1900 and 1915 nearly 3 million Italians immigrated to the USA because of poverty. These 3 million Italians brought not only their family members to America but also their culinary recipes and ingredients including the cilinder looking vegetable with an intense dark colour that originated from Milan. The Italians called this vegetable zucchini and so the word zucchini had been integrated into the American vocabulary.
Back in Italy they still couldn't decide what word should be used even though the rest of the world became used to the word zucchini. Until this day the Italians still use the words zucchino, zucchina, zucchini and zucchine. Which word is used depends on the region you find yourself in. Confusing? No just typical Italian...
There is a tale.... It tells of the days when a blight hung over our land. Nothing prospered. Nothing flourished. Not even zucchini would grow. - Cameron Dokey