Zucchini

Divine gives you the skinny on the versatile veggie that is the zucchini!

Divine Enya Mesina gives you the skinny on the versatile veggie, the zucchini!

                                                   Zucchini is a cross between upo and patola.

Zucchini is so versatile—you can grill it, stir-fry it, bake it, stuff it, put it in an omelet, and believe it or not, even make noodles out of it. How? Simply run a whole unpeeled zucchini lengthwise through a mandoline with an attachment to slice it into long, thin strips. Afterwards, sauté the “noodles” in olive oil with garlic and onions, add canned diced tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, and voilà! You have a tasty and healthy side dish.

I used to have a small vegetable garden when I lived in upstate New York. Come springtime, I would visit nurseries and buy several zucchini plant seedlings and plant them in my garden. By summer, I’d be rewarded with tons of zucchini—so much that I’d usually end up giving away a lot to friends and neighbors. Or, I’d bake loaves of zucchini bread and freeze them.

Another upside to growing your own zucchini: You’ll also get to harvest their blossoms. Zucchini belongs to the squash family, so they have flowers that look and taste exactly like bulaklak ng kalabasa. Even in New York, I’d get to dress my pinakbet with these lovely edible flowers.

I can hardly keep up with harvesting zucchini because the more you pick them, the more they bear flowers that turn into those beautiful dark green cylinders. I try to pick them when they’re still small, about 7 to 10 inches long, because when left on the plant for too long, they can grow to almost the size of a baseball bat! They can still be eaten then, but they won’t be as sweet as the regular-sized ones.

Personally, I think zucchini tastes like a cross between our local upo (bottle gourd) and patola (sponge gourd). Zucchini, in my opinion, has the best qualities of upo and patola combined—it has the texture of the former and the flavor of the latter. Perfect.


Photography by At Maculangan


Want to use Zucchini in your cooking? Find the recipes here.

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