nancy's blog

Zucca – an Autumn Favorite in Italy

Submitted by nancy on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 10:17

 

Zucca in Italy refers to virtually any winter  or “giallo/yellow” squash, ranging from the Pumpkin (Zucca di Halloween) to Butternut (Zucca di Butternut) with at least 20 nubby and smooth varieties in between.  “Zucchini,” or little squashes, are the summer variety familiar to everyone, shaped like a cucumber but more tender.  Zucche are tough with an almost-impenetrable gourd-exterior, meaty flesh and hollow core spilling stringy fibers and seeds.  Often during October, one will find a huge zucca behind the counter of one’s local fruttavendole/fruit-vegetable vendor, most often already cut wide open, its entrails dangling.  Rarely does one buy an entire zucca at the market, but asks for some portion of a kilo; a two etti/200 gram wedge of pumpkin or butternut is the right amount of a squash to make anything from a soul warming zuppa di zucca (squash soup), to

  • Add new comment
  • Read more

    • Slow Food

    Submitted by nancy on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 17:36

     

    Whether one’s image of an Italian pranzo comes from Italian films like Fellini’s Amarcord, or from films like The Godfather, that bridge the Italian and Italo-american cultures, the image is consistent: a complicated crowd of an extended Italian family, arranged around an endless table set up in a garden under a grape-arbor, with heaping plate after heaping plate of steaming pastas and meats and vegetables arriving as though delivered on a cloud, the kitchen off-stage, along with the host of cooking grandmothers, mothers, aunts and girl-children rapt by the mystery of food preparation. Pranzo was certainly never meant to be eaten on the run. Note the three-hour pausa/riposo/siesta built into the Italian work-day from 1:30 until 4:30 to ensure the kind of leisure required to eat and digest a good meal. Even school children come home for pranzo, their school day cut short by American standards. Who cares if that means they have to go to school on Saturdays! A proper meal is important.