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This article is about the fruit. For the 1982 book, see Zucchini (book). Zucchini (US, Australian, and Canadian English) or courgette (New Zealand and British English) is a small summer marrow or squash, also commonly called Italian squash. Its Latin name is Cucurbita pepo (a species which also includes other squash). It can either be yellow or green and generally has a similar shape to a ridged cucumber, though a few cultivars are available that produce round or bottle-shaped fruit. Unlike the cucumber it is usually served cooked, often steamed or grilled. Its flower can be eaten fried or stuffed. Culinarily, zucchini is considered to be a vegetable. However, biologically, the zucchini is a fruit, being the swollen ovary of the zucchini flower. Zucchini are traditionally picked when very immature, seldom over 8in/20cm in length. Mature zucchini can be as much as three feet long, but are often fibrous and not appetizing to eat. Zucchini is one of the easiest vegetables to cultivate in a temperate climate. As such, zucchini has a reputation among home gardeners for overwhelming production, and a common type of joke among home growers revolves around creative ways of giving away unwanted zucchini to people who already have been given more than they can use. In 2005, a poll of 2,000 people revealed the courgette to be Britain's 10th favourite culinary vegetable. In Mexico, the flower (known as Flor de Calabaza) is preferred over the fruit, and is often cooked in soups or used as a filling for quesadillas. Closely related, to the point where some seed catalogs do not make a distinction, are Lebanese summer squash or kusa, which closely resemble zucchini but often have a lighter green or even white color.
The zucchini flower
History and etymology Zucchini, like all summer squash, has its ancestry in the Americas. But while most summer squash--including the closely related cocozelle and marrow--were introduced to Europe during the time of European colonization of the Americas, zucchini is European in origin, the result of a spontaneously occurring mutation. In all probability, this occurred in the very late 19th century, probably near Milan (early varieties usually included the names of cities in the area in the name). Courgette comes from the French name of the vegetable, with the same spelling. It is a diminutive of courge, meaning squash. While "zucca" is the Italian word for squash, and the feminine plural "zucchine" is preferred in most areas of Italy, the male plural "zucchini" is used in other areas of Italy and the United States. The first records of zucchini in the United States date to the early 1920s. It was almost certainly brought over by Italian immigrants, and probably got its start in California. Nutrition The zucchini fruit is low in calories (approximately 15 food calories per 100 g fresh zucchini) but contains useful amounts of folate (24 mcg/100 g), potassium (280 mg/100 g) and vitamin A (384 IU 115 mcg/100 g). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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