Zucchini Demand Respect!

I look forward to the delicious dishes we cook all through the summer with this humble vegetable.

Kolokythia (ko-lo-KEE-thia, zucchini) is the most common Greek dismissive expression. If someone tells you a completely fabricated story, or gives a visibly false statement, the answer is usually ‘Kolokythia.’ 

I wish I knew where and when our wonderful summer vegetable came to be used in that context, but surely its taste has nothing to do with it! 

We boil zucchini with their hard stems still attached. We discard them when done, because if we cut them before boiling, the water seeps into the zucchini flesh, making the tender zucchini  unacceptably soggy.  

Neither, do I think, the dismissive expression is due to the vegetable’s ubiquity in many disguises in our daily menus.

And until its origin is discovered, we can enjoy the numerous delicious dishes we cook all through the summer with zucchini as their main component. 

As we are now trying to overcome the overeating during the wonderful Peloponnese and Athens trip

our garden’s zucchini crop is the answer. 

Our small vegetable garden, not particularly productive, usually gives us quite a sizable crop, so I often find myself creating new dishes or variations of the traditional ones.

For example, the much sought after zucchini fritters, a ubiquitous tavern staple in Greece, can with minor adjustments become a crustless pie topped with tomato slices or with a crunchy finish of sunflower seeds and grated cheese.

Somewhat oversized during our weeklong absence, diced and sautéed in olive oil with some garlic and a sprinkling of oregano, our zucchini became a favorite side dish these days, accompanying rice, pasta, chicken, or fish.

And of course, one can hardly resist the simple batter-fried zucchini disks

or the feta-mint stuffed zucchini blossoms, so popular among our guests.

 Click here for more recipes, but note, that you probably have to adjust them accordingly, especially if you are trying to replicate our irresistible fritters at home. 

The light green, Mediterranean zucchini have a dense flesh, unlike their dark and shiny American cousins whose flesh tends to be soft and somewhat mushy. Here and here you can order Mediterranean zucchini seeds to plant next year.