This just in: word origins may help explain resistance to eating squash

The origin of the word squash, as a vegetable, is askutasquash, a noun of the Narangansett tribe first noted in 1634, presumably in Plymouth, Massachusetts. I wonder how it sounded when the natives pronounced it and when the Puritans started to abbreviate it.

Squash as a verb has, of course, a completely different root than squash, the vegetable: consider the Middle English verb squachen, to beat into a pulp or flat mass. Then we have the word squashy, meaning easily squashed, softly wet, or boggy. (Thanks to Merriam Webster's, 2006.)

Who would willingly eat something that evokes squishy, boggy, softly wet? Why, babies, of course, who don't know any better. Is this why some older children and middle schoolers won't touch baked, roasted or mashed squash? Or is there something in squash itself that repels them?

All of this reminds me of anthropological studies of clean and unclean foods. But, I will stop here.

Squash gone

I've learned that acorn squash turns an intense gold-orange if you keep it around long enough. Instead of a handsome dark green, it begins to take on the color of an equally handsome October pumpkin. This was a squash I purchased at Russo's of Watertown, long before the first local farmers market in June. It never made it to the refrigerator, instead sitting in front of, or on top of, the bread box over the dishwasher that, with its heat, encourages mold on the bread and sprouts on the potatoes.

My mother often served acorn squash baked with butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Deborah Madison has a recipe which involves grilling until tender with olive oil and herbs. Once, to my dismay as I think of it now, I served baked squash and liver at a dinner party. What could I have been thinking?

In any case, this morning I picked up the aged squash and dropped it in the trash. I didn't even take the time to slice it up for the compost. I held it high and let go. Now, you may ask, why does this woman waste vegetables like this, especially such a beautiful, solid, architecturally perfect object with its evenly spaced ridges? I can only say, I am sorry, and confess that there is also a very faded half-cabbage that needs to come out of the vegetable drawer. This, at least, I'll put in the compost bucket.

D. Madison's recipe for acorn or any winter squash:
Cut squash into half inch slices and steam until tender. Combine 2 minced garlic cloves with 1 tsp. each chopped rosemary and thyme and 1/3 cup olive oil. Brush over squash and season with salt and pepper. Grill both sides until marked and tender, then serve with a dash of apple cider. (p.439, "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone")

A garden in Sicily

From "The Leopard" by Giuseppe di Lampedusa: "But the garden, hemmed and almost squashed between these barriers, was exhaling scents that were cloying, fleshy, and slightly putrid, like the aromatic liquids distilled from the relics of certain saints; the carnations superimposed their pungence on the formal fragrance of roses and the oily emanations of magnolias drooping in corners; and somewhere beneath it all was a faint smell of mint mingling with a nursery whiff of acacia and the jammy one of myrtle; from a grove beyond the wall came an erotic waft of early orange blossom."

True that not a single vegetable is mentioned, but there are also mounds and irrigation canals, so perhaps there were also eggplant and tomatoes and basil. These were certainly present at the Belmont Farmers Market today, an abundance of color and activity, from raspberries to potatoes to rainbow chard. How different a visit to the Market is from the Prince of the House of Salina's visit to his odiferous garden.

Vegetables at food pantries

On a recent Friday I spent a couple of hours packing plastic bags full of canned goods for a food pantry in Chelsea. Two cans of beans, a can of tuna, two cans of soup, a can of carrots and one of peas, and a can of fruit, along with various starches like brown rice and macaroni. The peaches were marked "product of China."

I wasn't there for the next day's guests, who would also have access to fresh vegetables stacked high in cardboard boxes. The boxes included corn, lettuce, and bananas, among other fragile things. The storage room was slightly air conditioned, and the vegetables were described as an experiment. Indeed, I wondered how they would last the next 24 hours-- the corn husks were beginning to turn pale and dry.

But if were offered a choice between fruit in a can that's a product of China, and fresh fruit or vegetables, I would almost certainly take the fresh part. This is the attitude of groups like Boston Area Gleaners (headed by Oakes Plimpton, former manager of the Arlington MA farmers market). When I think of gleaning, I think of Ruth and her mother-in-law in the Old Testament, gathering grain. Oakes and others, today, do much the same, but with any left over fruit or vegetable, which they then distribute to pantries like the one in Chelsea.

It's a complicated process--much more so than filling plastic bags with cans. The gleaners have my thanks and admiration.

My herb garden

I've always wanted an herb garden. Many, many years ago my mother gave me a collection of herb seeds from Williamsburg, and I planted dill, savory, rosemary, sage, and other colonial plants. This was in Durham, North Carolina, and the herbs grew alongside the gardenias.

Since then I've dreamed of knot gardens, of elaborate and meticulously designed arrangements of herbs, including lavender and echinacea, pot marigolds and thyme, with paths for strolling and savoring, as Jane Austen might have done.

But, the space I have here in Massachusetts is a raised bed shaped in an isosceles triangle about six feet in length, with its point cut off, and by late August the morning glories are twining and re-twining everywhere. Still, I am pleased. At the center is a healthy sorrel plant with its strong, citrus-tasting leaves. A large sage puts out new pale green leaves every spring and thrives when I cut it back mercilessly.

Peppermint competes with the morning glories along the length of the garden wall, choking the oregano and the tarragon until I chop it back. There are three chive plants, one rosemary, and, my pride this year, a lemon verbena, with the most intense and green lemon fragrance. My daughter and I made a sherbet with its leaves soaked in warm milk.

The thyme is surviving and the annual flat-leafed parsley, and there is basil in pots, and lavender and echinacea in the perennial border, and a little fragile dill. Herbs, as you may know, do well with neglect and lack of water, so mine have survived this very dry summer. And the morning glories are in purple bloom, so I forgive them as I do the mint.

Vegetables live on

I acknowledge that it's been just about four years since my last post. But, here I am. And with a new cookbook by Deborah Madison, "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone," which has liberated, released, or perhaps launched me in new directions. It's true that on return from vacation on the 16th, I found moldy beets and mildewed broccoli in the refrigerator, but I can proudly say that my throw-out vegetables now include beet greens and serrano chiles, to which Deborah M introduced me. And the limes in the refrigerator are used for more than just vodka tonics.

One recent success: corn soup, made with corn from the farmers market, onion, potato, and stock, whirred in the blender for 3 minutes, a little light cream stirred in, and served hot or cold with fresh herbs. Essence of sweet corn. Very positive, don't you think? Tonight I prepared a stew of zuccini, tomatoes, garlic, capers, black olives, and fresh herbs from the bed outside the kitchen door. Ate it with feta cheese over brown rice.

For the most part I am feeling encouraged about my relationship with vegetables.

More fruits, but no vegetables

Here's Tantalus, tortured in Hell by fruit withheld: "Boughs, too, drooped low above him, big with fruit, pear trees, pomegranates, brilliant apples, luscious figs, and olives ripe and dark. . ." (Book XI line 704)

Ever hear of a luscious brussels sprout? a brilliant parsnip?

Is it possible the Greeks had no spinach? Is it possible Frank Zappa read the Odyssey and is compensating?

I know potatoes hadn't yet migrated from South America, but this is ridiculous.

I suppose Tantalus might not have been so miserable if it had been vegetables withheld: arugula, green beans, bok choy. Still it would depend on his diet, wouldn't it?

Call Any Vegetable

My brother, in China, just told me about Frank Zappa's song, Call Any Vegetable, from June, 1967.

Call and they'll come to you
Covered with dew
Vegetables dream
Of responding to you
Standing there
Shiny & proud by your side
Holding your hand
While the neighbors decide
Why is a vegetable
Something to hide?
YAR-R-R-R-R-G-H!

Thanks to Stan. The song is not from Lumpy Gravy but from Absolutely Free. You can find the song anywhere on the web--the excerpt comes from

http://lyrics.duble.com/lyrics/F/frank-zappa-lyrics/frank-zappa-call-any-vegetable-lyrics.htm