SEEDS & WEEDS: The Funniest Things People Have Said About GARDENING

240 QUIPPERY / SEEDS & WEEDS
If people grew it, they hid it somewhere — or
claimed it was a giant cucumber, or cut it up
and concealed it in the fruit salad.
In any case, no one talked about it or
ever offered it to anyone. We all ate corn and
beans and other vegetables more adequately
designed for human consumption. Then about
30 years ago, zucchini started popping up here
and there.
At first, no one quite knew what to do with it.
My aunt Mabel sliced it and fried it and
discovered it tastes like grease. My sister cut it up
and baked it in a tuna casserole and found that it
tastes like tuna. My uncle Jim tried making
zucchini wine and said it tastes like water with a
slight kick. The best idea in those days came from
my daughter, who dressed up a zucchini like a doll
and pushed it around her baby carriage until it rotted.
The fact is, zucchini does not taste like anything.
As Ann says, the joy of zucchini is that you can put it in
anything and it will take on the flavor of whatever that
anything is. Her theory is that when Jesus fed the
multitudes with five loaves and two fish, he used zucchini