Hey, Sylvia.

Happy Zucchini show.

Yeah.

Zucchini's the star of the summer show.

Its recipe.

Oh boy.

Prolific for sure.

I think prolific.

It grows and it grows and it grows.

One plant can produce five to 10 pounds of zucchini.

Is that just remarkable?

Well, but, but I just learned something today.

Did you know that there's actually a male.

Zucchini flower and a female zucchini flower.

Oh, yeah.

Oh yeah.

Right.

And it's very complicated how they pollinate and what pollinates them all.

Very, very interesting.

But you know, I think the most fascinating thing I found out is

that this thing began 7,000 years ago in the roots of the Americas,

Mexico to Costa Rica and all of that.

It

started to grow back then.

Oh, I, it was watched at the time.

Right.

And that's all anybody knew it as.

And I love this.

It was part of the three sisters, 11 three sisters, okay.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, beans, corn, and squash in.

If you go like to Minnesota where there are a lot of Native American restaurants,

right?

They make all the food out of those three things.

Isn't that challenging?

I mean, think about it.

You know?

Uh, 'cause that's what they have.

Well, they use other things, but I guess they use those predominantly.

Those are there vegetable kinds of things.

Yeah, they have meats because Right.

It's whatever the people had anyway, that modern day zucchini was

developed in Italy of all places.

Isn't that cool?

That's the pretty little one.

But they started here in North and Central America, right?

Yeah.

In the Americas.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

But the modern day Z, I'll call it Z, you know, kind of catchy.

Right?

Z?

Z like Zoro, zucchini is Zika.

The Italian name, meaning squash is that delicate, immature

fruit, and it's a fruit.

Oh, love this.

Because it has seeds, you know, like tomatoes.

People think they're veggies.

Yep.

These are seeds, and then it's also called, in some cases, baby marrow beef.

I was so intrigued by that because marrow always thinks

of like marrow and bone, right?

Yeah,

but if you grow it big enough, it becomes marrow, which is

probably not even a edible.

I mean, you catch it when it's young and delicate.

Right.

Well, I guess

marrow meaning the idea that it gets large and then there's that,

the seed part in the middle that's soft and gooey kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it's baby, baby marrow, and so that's, that's good.

And then came into its own in the early part of the 20th

century by Italian immigrants.

I always thought of it as just such a rugged American right thing, which

it started that way, but the actual modern day zucchini and who knows if

we looked back and, and and examined.

'cause I always think of squash as being big yellow Gord like things, you know?

Exactly.

Yeah.

This is like green with like.

Weird stripes and you know, things like that.

Stripes.

Stripes.

It's like the zucchini went to jail.

Here's another interesting factoid, though.

It was highly prized in the victory gardens of World War ii, which were

established all over the United States as small garden areas to help

with the war effort and rationing.

Hmm.

And that was the way that small time people.

With just, you know, small plots of land could contribute.

They were called victory gardens.

Well, you know, that makes sense because it's not that difficult

to actually grow zucchini.

Oh, it's very easy.

Although I have heard people are having problems, but it's

pretty easy to do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the abundance, uh, there's another interesting thing about

it, because of its abundance and.

The prolific flowering of this plant.

Uh, there are lots of themes in myths and, you know, mythology about birth abundance

from God, rebirth, communal living.

So it's all those things too.

So fascinating.

Fascinating.

Yeah.

But just for a moment, talk about that Z as a fruit.

Right, right.

And if you think about it, what do you think about all

the things that have seeds.

It's like it's sisters and it's brothers and sisters would be

bell peppers, avocados, pumpkins, olives, olive tree, woman peas, and

green beans, just to name a few.

So are they fruits, not vegetables?

They're fruits because they have.

Seeds have seeds.

Now it gets a little hard to figure that out.

And it doesn't really matter, does it?

Right.

Because what you're looking for is savory additions to your table, not

necessarily whether it's a fruit or not.

I mean, tomatoes, I don't care.

But it did make a difference in like the 18th century, 18th

and 19th century on taxation.

Oh, isn't that interesting?

Hmm.

Because vegetables will be taxed differently than, than fruits.

So that's kind of interesting.

And so those are sort of the background pieces.

Yeah.

I haven't paid attention to my tax bill at the grocery, whether fruits

and vegetables are taxed differently.

I'll have to check that one out, but I didn't think about that.

I was reading that corn on the cob.

'cause you know, you sitting here like, well, okay, well what has seeds?

Well each of the little kernels is a seed.

But it's a vegetable, a corn on a cob.

A corn is a vegetable.

I think that's very confusing.

It is.

And beyond anything anybody needs to really care about.

Right.

I think my

brain is going to seed, so maybe it's a fruit.

So then you have of course, how we use zucchini.

And you've got, you've got some zucchini tails, right?

Oh, I've got a ton of zucchini tails, but I know do Oh, fascinating ones.

Yeah.

I can't wait to hear those.

The giant Z.

Yeah.

Well, what do you think how zucchini is most used in the kitchen?

Hmm.

I'm gonna say it's most used

sauteed as bread.

Everybody makes loaves of zucchini bread.

Oh yeah.

Think too.

Yeah.

It's so obvious, right?

Yeah.

And I mean, people will have freezers full, and then there's

that stealth giving thing.

Leave a loaf on your neighbor's doorstep.

So August 8th is leave a zucchini on your neighbor's doorstep.

And I researched that a little bit because I thought that was hysterical, having

been through the zucchini abundance wave as in years past as kids, but.

I never heard of leave a zucchini on your neighbor's doorstep.

I don't either.

I'm trying to think, which I think is hysterical.

Well, they say it was started in Illinois, but then I found some

conflicting reports saying that actually started in Pennsylvania.

Either way, the crafty character who wanted to get rid of the abundance of the

Z fruit will say, was kind of a sly dog.

Yeah.

I could say to do that.

Right?

Yeah.

And then there are also variations on zucchini.

There's albino.

Zucchini.

Hmm.

Uh, one woman found it in her flower bed and she's like, where did that come from?

Well, the zucchini sneaks around at night, therefore it becomes

different colors in the morning.

It's just almost an intelligent plant.

It knows.

Whoops, where has my zucchini been?

Oh, that sounds rather perverted.

It knows, and it

plants its seed in your flower garden.

And then you have the male and female flowers in 'em mean you

just got, you know, a torrid romance thing going on here.

You know,

God, watch out Hugh Hefner.

Ooh, maybe we shouldn't say that.

We are a family show.

Yeah.

So anyway, you've got, uh, then you've got of course all the uses.

If you, if you Google, you know, what can I use this stuff for?

'cause I mean, unless you wanna give it all to your neighbors and

with ring cameras, I'd be careful.

You're very careful.

Right.

You never know that could start a war between you and your neighbor.

Well,

unless you dress like a zucchini and then maybe you blend in, I don't know.

That'd

be a great thing.

Go to a Halloween party as a zucchini and a corn on the comm,

you know, both long and slender.

I. Make you look good, right?

Mm-hmm.

I guess right.

What you can do.

Well, you know, I've noticed, like in my air fryer cookbook, Uhhuh, there are

all these many variations now on chips.

Oh.

And we've done is potato chip show, right?

Right.

But what about zucchini chips?

Mm, sweet potato chips?

Well, sweet potato chips are good.

Right, but zucchini chips does.

That idea doesn't turn me on too much.

Well, you

think about it, you just cover it with olive oil and your favorite spices.

Put it in your air fryer.

And I've done that before with sweet potatoes.

I hadn't even thought about it with zucchini.

No, but you know, why not?

I mean, that's, that's a possibility.

It's a healthy, crispy snack.

You can, that's one check mark you can do for zucchini.

Healthy

green.

Right?

Well, you dehydrate it and I've heard people dehydrating it and

blending it into flour and using it and mixing with regular flour.

Kind of like our Christmas tree story back in December where you take the inner side

of the Christmas tree and you blend that down and put it into flour and mix it up.

But zucchini.

Yeah.

Nancy, I

thought of you and I was traveling through Virginia the other day

in the mountains of Virginia and I ran into Ash County, Virginia,

where they raise Christmas trees.

They are lined up on the mountainsides and I'm like, Nancy would have a field

day here eating those Christmas trees.

Did you get hungry while you

were driving, looking through at all those trees?

I

know.

I thought of you.

Isn't that weird or what?

Anyway, listen to this about Z Flower, okay?

Uh, 'cause you can use it, okay?

Right?

Yeah.

But it says to be careful, you replace only up to half.

With the regular flour, you mix it because, because zucchini, whatever

that creates the flour is very absorbent and can make the resulting food dry.

Dry.

Not gum, not gumming Well, okay.

So, um hmm.

You gotta be careful with your zucchinis.

Uh, yeah.

Zucchini flour can

be a little dangerous, I guess.

Z Zorro zucchini plant.

Oh.

And they say it's very good with chocolate.

Zucchini has a very earthy taste.

It's gluten-free.

Oh, like brownies?

Like zucchini, brownies, I guess.

Chocolate.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Brownies.

I think you could do that Well if you did the flour thing.

And then you've also got zucchini sushi.

You could use thin strips of zucchini as a wrapper.

Oh, that would be good.

I could see that.

Yes.

Replacing seaweed for a fresh, crunchy twist.

I could.

I could see that.

Okay.

That could be delicious.

Yes.

There's zucchini pasta.

Spiralize zucchini into noodles called zoodles and serve with sauces.

Alright.

We've tried

that, we've tried that.

I, I, I put the kibosh on that.

And did it work out?

No, no.

You know what?

The interesting thing about zucchini is that there's a lot of water in zucchini.

So when you make these spiralized noodles on it, doodles, as you call them, um,

they're, and then you try and cook them as if they were regular noodles.

You don't cook them in water, you just mix them in with the pasta sauce or anything.

It's an awful lot of water that comes out of it.

So.

I just find them kind of mushy and I, I don't particularly like them,

although they say if you squish them, then the water comes out.

I've tried squishing, but you know, that's too much work.

You know, I'd really love to hear from people who listen to this podcast.

I wanna see if they've actually used zucchini flour.

Because it seems like to me it'd make a great thing for people

who are gluten sensitive even.

Well, if you're still mixing it with regular flour, probably not.

I'm gonna try that.

Well, and I even questioned this.

Mm-hmm.

It's very absorbent and it makes food dry.

I mean, I know, I read that.

That sounds counterintuitive, right?

How could that work?

Silence.

The silence doesn't sound right there.

Can somebody help us out?

And tell us what they do and pairing with chocolate.

Hmm.

And

see what that is like.

I know I read it that way.

It was weird.

Uh, zucchini frets.

Where you grate zucchini mixed with eggs, flour and spices and pan fry

for savory fritters, add corn herbs.

I've

had those like the almost like, um, potato pancakes.

Yeah.

Uh, or like latkes, you know, Bob makes great latkes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we've had those,

or even bread variations like jalapeno.

I'm not a spicy people do that with corn bread.

That's too hot and spicy for me, so Interesting.

Very interesting.

And then your more traditional

things are

oui.

There you go.

Pickled zucchini.

That sounds disgust.

You know, pickling is the rage.

I know.

Pickling is the rage.

Do you like pickled things at the farmer's market this morning,

um, we tried a pickled nut.

So it was a pickled nut.

A pickled nut.

A nut.

It was a, um, uh, oh, I'm trying to think of the name of the nut.

The, anyway, but, but it was a pickled nut and I thought, ooh, pickled nuts.

Did it taste good?

Mm. Yeah.

I could leave that one.

Yeah.

I like pickles.

I mean, I like the, you know, the ones that are shaped like

a cucumber, right, right.

Or sliced up slicers, they call 'em.

Yeah, this one did.

This one didn't do anything for me.

You know, some

of those things with these kind of vegetables.

My father never grew and he was the grower in the family.

Mm-hmm.

And he never grew zucchini.

And maybe there was a reason for that because he didn't want, he,

he didn't have any neighbors.

We lived on a farm.

Right.

He couldn't, couldn't off offload it to anybody but.

There's just something about zucchini doesn't look appetizing to me.

Now, when you make zucchini bread, how do you make it?

Well,

do

you grind it up?

No, you grate it.

You grate it, uh, you know, grade, you grate it by hand and then you mix it.

It's like a nut bread, you know, like a breakfast bread.

So it's a quick rise.

You know, it's a, you don't have to rice, it's a quick bread.

Yeah, like banana nut bread, and then you put in it, and it's very good.

When we moved from Long Island to Massachusetts, my parents were in a

bit of a financial strait because.

Moving a business in a factory from New York.

They were battling some challenges, financial challenges down in there.

And they never let us know as kids.

So we didn't know any difference.

And Dad made a garden in the backyard probably.

As I look back now as a way to of necessity, help feed our family right

out of necessity, and he'd go back there with his scotch after coming

back from work and bless his heart, water, the garden, and make sure it was

growing and take care of the critters.

That's a

sensible man, right?

You know,

gotta take care of your garden with a scotch in your hand, you know?

Something.

Yeah, it makes that contemplation a whole lot better.

You know,

zucchini looks a little bit better with a scotch in your hand too, probably.

But I do have a zucchini story.

We have lots of zucchini stories, but let's get to those after this quick break.

Okay.

Okay,

so back, back to gardening with scotch in hand and zucchini, now you're

talking.

Right.

You can substitute bourbon.

You know, I, there are in many different wine.

It depends upon where you're from, right?

Wine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, wine in the stem, you need a good, you got a good Tumblr.

It's not gonna tip over in a garden, so you need something.

Although the plants might like it, you know, they say

they like coffee.

I know, right?

We put our coffee grinds in the garden, but coffee grinds.

But back to the zucchini.

So one, one day we, my dad noticed that the zucchini were disappearing and

being eaten, and it turns out, yeah, it turns out there was a wood chuck in Oh.

The backfield that was coming in.

So we, he tried to figure out how do you get rid of this thing

that's eating all our vegetables?

And ultimately he ended up asking the local farmers.

And the farmers said, well, you take smoke bombs and you put them in

where you find one hole and then the smoke will come up the other hole,

and then you fill in the two holes.

Not once you find out where they are.

Right.

Well that didn't work other than the backfield looked kind of smoky.

We had seven acres and not all of it was farmed, but you know, in and garden.

It was a small little plot.

Mm-hmm.

So that didn't work.

And then, um, Donald Jenkins, who lived down the street from us, a local old

time, ex generation, Massachusetts farmer, said, you know, Stewart.

You gotta get that guy and you gotta pitchfork him and then you cut his head

off and you stick it on a stick for a sign for all the other woodchucks.

Well, my dad, he'll

try anything with scotch.

Right.

The glassful scotch being in a household full of girls, right?

No, two girls and mom.

He was very proud of himself.

He pitch forked that sucker cut off his head and stuck the stake on it,

and stuck the stick on the stake.

And he said, don't go back in the garden.

Yeah,

right.

Gives no meaning to that song.

If a good tuck could Chuck.

What is it?

Zucchini?

The Z. The mighty Z, yes.

Oh, so that was, that was one of our zucchini stories and yes, the zucchini.

Zucchini, everything.

Oh my God.

We had zucchini every night for dinner.

We had zucchini succotash, we had zucchini with, with you name it,

baked, boiled, broiled and fried.

We had zucchini bread, so there was no room in the refrigerator or a freezer

for anything other than zucchini bread.

Oh,

other things.

I'm just curious.

Oh, yes.

But that was, that was the most prolific, I mean.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, we had, um, what else did he grow?

Well, it was yellow, zucchini and, and green.

Well, squash and, and zucchini, which grew pretty easily.

We had a, a patch of, um, asparagus, which was left there because asparagus

takes a long time to actually, yeah.

Grow or set itself.

But apparently the, um, the people, the couple, the couple of generations

before us had a big asparagus plot, so we discovered that by chance.

Mm-hmm.

Tomatoes, of course, uh, those didn't always grow so well, but we had the

tomatoes, Brussels sprouts and lettuce.

Lots of lettuce.

That worked really well, except I don't like picking lettuce

because you get all the.

Grit in the sand and you have to wash it really well.

And it's a pain in the neck.

Yeah.

Not that you don't wash lettuce anyway, but it's,

I have, uh, nightmares of bushels of green beans being

put before me to ruin my summer

days.

We didn't do green beans.

Those didn't work too well.

And, uh, Brussels sprouts.

I love Brussels sprouts, so there's some other things, but those are

the things that I remember most of.

But zucchini, the mighty zucchini was the most prolific in the garden.

Sounds like it.

Yeah.

It's a survivor.

Yes, yes.

Had survived many generations.

Yes.

So

that's our zucchini story.

Did your

family,

did they preserve any of it?

Oh, heck no.

Because preservation?

No, no, no, no, no.

Mom and I tried canning once.

I will never do that if my life depends upon it.

Absolutely.

Never get, my sister does Cannings like God love her, but nope.

Yeah, my mother can.

Nope.

Mom and I were like, Hmm, you know what, we can kiss this one goodbye.

Yeah.

Not fun.

Not fun.

Yeah.

Uh, well, yeah, and you can freeze it too, but I mean, you know, uh, so

you'd have a zucchini all winter long.

Right.

A lot of people do that with tomato sauces.

Well, tomato juice.

Yeah.

We put the question out to some people about what do you do with zucchini and do

having any zucchini stories And somebody came back with this is really fascinating.

Um, we'll have to put the.

What the, maybe you'll put the recipe on the Instagram or maybe the Facebook page,

but somebody came back and said, you can make a mock apple pie using zucchini.

No.

Yeah.

Nuh

nuh.

I'll

have to try that one because somehow, not the crust, but the actual filling.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You'd have to put a lot of sugar in it to get

me.

Apparently

it's made

on April,

but then you have to for rhubarb, you know, so maybe it works.

It's

used on April Fool's day.

Just don't, just don't tell me that's what it's, but I would imagine,

remember how we, well, uh, was it the last episode of the episode

before we talked about potato chips?

Yeah.

I am thinking that if you make a zucchini pie, even if it's a zucchini

quiche, right, because you can make zucchini quiche and that's pretty good.

Yeah.

Well, zucchini, but instead.

Instead of the crust, why not make potato chip crusts?

Right.

Hmm.

That's an idea.

There you go.

So I just pulled that one out of my, my sweet little head.

That makes me think of a popular pie in Kentucky called Transparent Pie.

I haven't heard of that one.

And I'm like, what's the point of a transparent pie?

I know, right?

It would just have to be sugar basically.

You know, I. Maybe butter.

I, I don't know.

Transparent pie.

Yeah, zucchini pie.

You can have those things.

Give me a good old banana.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

the story I'm making, the apple pie outta zucchini came from

that was, uh, bet Sullivan.

Oh.

And uh, that was part of, also, she mentioned the August 8th.

You know, leave a zucchini on your neighbor's front door.

I did several other people.

You could make 15 pies

on one.

I know and still have plenty left over.

Karen

Lynch said that her German Shepherd likes to eat them on the vine.

They have no dog eating zucchini.

Alright, that was a good one.

No, that's a good one.

Let me see what else came.

Um, so, uh oh.

Uh, one of Phyllis.

Baum, I think is how we pronounce her last name.

She said her story is rather boring.

She says once one year she had almost a hundred pounds of zucchini and it ended

up shredded, frozen, drained, dehydrated, powdered, makes a nice addition to

regular bread flour like we talked about.

And in the morning she added it to eggs, banana bread, breakfast smoothies,

soups, and even zucchini bread.

So.

I think she's pretty green.

I wish she'd answered that question.

How do you make the flour and how do you mix it with regular flo?

Oh, well, so here's, here's what I heard.

You take the zucchini and you, you probably slice it up, and

then you dehydrate it so it's, you know, all dry and crispy, and

then you blend it in the blender.

So it's all, well, it's not shredded, but it's pulverized into a flower.

Okay, and then you add either a half or only a third.

You don't put too much in the, like you said, too much in the

flour, but otherwise, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Well, maybe that's why, because you dehydrate it.

That's interesting.

It's a lot of science to that, but you know, there's a lot of science to cooking.

I know.

Well, um, you know, measurements and all that stuff and what, you know,

cookies, you can make three batches of cookies and they can all be different

based on how much butter you use when you put it, what you put in first.

Right.

My chef always told me that.

So, um, let me see.

There was another woman, um, Leslie Vance.

She said she was, she was a city gal who married a country boy and

ended up moving to the rural area as a good country wife always does.

Right.

And she was put in charge of the garden, never having gardened before.

She had no idea what she was doing.

Yeah.

Sounds like me.

So, um.

She knew that her, her new, um, husband liked zucchini, so she wanted

to make sure she had an adequate supply of that for bread and pickles,

and I see where this is going.

Right on other things.

So somehow she translated the idea that she needed.

12 hills because you grow zucchini on these little hills.

Little mounds is a particular way that you grow zucchini, not just

flat, but you build these little mounds so it sort of grows over.

And she put three seeds in each hill or mound now Uhoh, three times, 12 times.

The amount of zucchini that's Oh, I

see.

Could you even see their house as you approached?

I know.

So she said she was, needless to say she was inundated with zucchini

after dental daily inspections.

She figured she made the Guinness World Book of Records with the amount of

zucchini that she probably grew that year.

And um, she also made the grave mistake that the hens actually only liked.

This is funny.

She made the mistake, she thought that hens only like to lay one egg a day.

So she figured if I needed, you know, two dozen eggs per week, she needs, so

that's, um, like 24 chickens, right?

Whoops.

Too many zucchini, too many eggs.

Yeah.

The farmer, yeah, she used to ditch the eggs and the zucchini

along the way on her routes to friends and neighbors or strangers.

So I think that's pretty funny, but that's, that's a good one.

I'd love to know where she ended up, right?

Well, she married the same guy, but you know, did she, what did she

learn out of all that experience?

That's great.

I mean, that's so neat.

Too much of a good thing is too

much.

Yeah.

Not necessarily a good thing.

I love stories.

Yeah.

Living and learning, right.

Janice Murray mentioned zucchini butter.

Well, that's kind of interesting.

Course I never heard of zucchini butter.

Never.

But apparently it's not butter.

Like in like milk butter.

Like butter, yeah.

It's kind of like a. I, I would call like a salsa looking kind of thing that you

put it on like almost like a salsa jam.

Ohsa.

Like

pico or something like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah, you can put it in that too.

Pico.

Yep.

Um, other people said, mentioned zucchini qui as a really good one to do.

That I'm gonna imagine I haven't tried zucchini quiche, but um, I haven't.

But that sounds it could be good.

Well, again, because it's watery, I would think that that's kind of tough

as well, but, well, I wonder if you could also add it to, um, sauce.

Like you're always trying to find something for your kids mm-hmm.

That they'll eat.

Mm-hmm.

Like pizza sauce.

You could grind it up and add it.

As of you could do that with any vegetable, but you know,

that's one way to use zucchini.

Is to mix it in with a vegetable, with a tomato

sauce that the kids

are

familiar with.

Well, that makes sense.

Yep.

Yep.

Yeah, that was sort of like a rat chewy.

And phy also mentioned putting it in breakfast smoothies.

That sounds disgusting.

I'm not eating b zucchini for breakfast, but, um, but we have a really interesting

story that we're gonna end on.

And that is from, let me get her name.

God, she was hysterical.

I love this story.

It is from Bette, uh, what's be Bette's last name.

Bet Sullivan Bet Sullivan.

And she is, it's worth waiting for folks.

Oh, the, this is the Grand Caper.

This is a story about how a zucchini solved a crime.

So just hang tight because I think you're gonna like

this one.

Uh, no, you will.

Well, now that we've solved the great

zucchini caper, Sylvia, and he's been put away, I think it's right.

I think it's time to put this one to bed and Well, maybe I'll dream of zucchini.

I don't know about you.

Yeah, let's find

some more creative ways to use that beautiful plant.

Delicate as it is.

Don't stuff your pillow with it though,

as if I can't go that far.

No, for sure.

Right, but maybe you can use the flowers for lots of different things too.

Yep.

There you go.

Well, no, you can use the flowers for lots of sweet dreams and

delicious treats, so Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

If you haven't tried zucchini, give it a try in many forms and may all

your zucchini dreams come true.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Goodbye.