The Humble Zucchini

by Hannah Rosenberg

PHOTO: @achera UnSplash A particular dish, perhaps a pumpkin pie recipe or a creamy green bean casserole, often harbors decades of memories, familiar flavors, and the nostalgic connection to friends and family. While I share the love of eating foods that evoke time around the Thanksgiving table or jokes with friends, a single ingredient--the sweet pop of a spice, the crunch of a vegetable--can provide the same comforts and sentiment. For me, that ingredient is the humble zucchini: the green summer squash that accumulates in farmers markets and supermarkets across the Northeast.

When I was in elementary school, my dad would receive a seed catalog with hundreds of pictures of crops, including Zinnia flowers, variations of sugar snap peas, and pumpkins that had no chance of growing in our New York climate—a gardener’s delight. My dad poured over the garden possi- bilities and revelled in the idea that through his labor and nature’s handiwork, these miniscule seeds would blossom into vegetables for summer meals. As I try to trace the roots of my summer vegetable obsession, I land in recurring mo- ments in my dad’s garden. I loved the process of producing food from seeds, connecting to the earth, and searching for the perfect not-quite-ripe vegetable to pull from a plant when my dad was not looking. Throughout the spring, I would shove on my blue camouflage rain boots, stomping around the grass of our backyard, as he unclipped the steel keychain that connected the collapsing black-wired fence that hung around the perimeter of the garden to a stick of wood: the door to the vegetable enchantment. Stepping in the overgrown patch, my dad would place a handful of zucchini seeds in my hand. I mirrored what he did, drawing a line in the mulch with a stick, plunging my finger into the plush ground to make a hole, and burying a seed into the earth, gently covering it with a pile of dirt. Once those tiny flecks grew to greet the mild spring air with rows of green stems and yellowing flowers, my dad and I would spend early mornings in the dewy spring air plucking our crops from the patch of abundance. Exchanging smiles as we muddied our fingers, my dad and I kneeled in the plot of dirt and greenery before our neighbors’ alarms howled.

Ever since the Saturday mornings spent sitting atop my dad’s shoulders as we meandered through tents of local farmstand tomatoes and rose-shaped lettuces, my family claimed Sunday nights as farmers market dinners. As the sun set on the weekend, my family and I took our places in the kitchen. There we all held a role preparing a meal from the previous day’s purchases. My dad would pull out zucchinis the size of baseball bats from the fridge, supplementing the farmers market supply with the fruits of his labor. I floated around the kitchen, catching the routine “snip, snip” of my dad chopping zucchini and onions. Pulling myself up on the counter to occasionally help slice the verdant squash into coins, I listened to the sizzle of the vegetable rounds greeting the shimmering pan as my dad tossed them in the oil. Within minutes, the aroma of caramelizing onions would waft through the kitchen. Gradually, the stiff vegetables harmonized with each other: the zucchini’s interior reduced into a creamy and stringy state, and the onions shrivelled into a sweet accompaniment. After my family slid into our chairs at the dinner table, we passed the plated dish around the table, scooping bowl-size portions of the mixture onto our plates. We indulged in the freshness of the vegetables and my dad’s cooking, the perfect accompaniment to a summer evening.

My early love for zucchini extended beyond our stove and garden.

When teachers and camp counselors would ask the ice breaker, “What’s your favorite food?” I didn’t say “pizza,” “pasta,” or “chicken nuggets.” I would declare, “sauteed zucchini!” as if the dish was a popular kids’ food.

I eventually stopped selecting the vegetable as my standard ice-breaker response, but my love for the vegetable and the memories it evokes never withered.

As butter, sugar, and Food Network Magazine coated my middle school afternoons, I counted down the days until my weekly trips to the farmers market and took over the Sunday-night staple, as if a tradition and family recipe had been handed down to me. “Doctor it up,” my dad would say as I labored over the cutting board. “You know, add a little bit of pesto, tomato paste. You’re the chef here!” Forge a distinct path through cooking, he implied; use your senses; savor the flavors of the season, so I did.

By high school, as I delved further into my curiosity for cooking, local produce, and supporting the farmers market vendors who poured their energy into providing nourishment for others, the simple zucchini recipe gained some friends. Waking up at 5:50 a.m. to craft my overly complicated school lunches, or preparing new dishes alongside sauteed zucchini

PHOTOS: KEVIN CAVALLO

and onions on Sundays, I transformed home-grown zucchini into a raw, nutty pesto, or some days spiralized it, topping the noodle-fied gourd with a kale-basil sauce.

So, thank you, humble zucchini, for all the delightful memories, versatility, countless lessons on the importance of family meals, and the wonders of herbs and summertime stillness. Zucchini supplied my family and I with a timestamp from the rest of the week imbued with a tradition of cooking vegetables into a sweet and umami packed dish for a Sunday delight. Each time I bite into a strand of zoodles or a slice in caramelized form, I have a surge of appreciation for the farmers that trucked in the wee hours of the day to my suburban town, for my family, my dad’s garden, and for the soil that nourished the humble zucchini.