Zucchini. Zoo-keen-knee. What a disconnect between its name, free-spirited and lyrical, and the vegetable, ubiquitous and obese, tasteless and dull. (I cringe at the uppityness of calling it courgette, or the spongy connotation of marrow.)
Repulsive, as Lorna Crozier describes in “The Sex Lives of Vegetables:”
The zucchini strokes the slim waists
of the pea vines, peeks under
the skirts of the yellow beans…
a voyeur…
In secret shadows it spreads…
Except (isn’t there always an exception?) for zucchini blossoms.
Soft petals of bright orange-yellow, thin and delicate with striations of white and green, playful, like the hat on a harlequin clown. And as much fun to cook.
Zucchini blossoms have a thin texture like a gauzy velvet and a flavour that’s nuanced, faintly sweet. Like a young summer romance.