My earliest memory of my mother’s home garden was her formidable yet beloved zucchini plant. Tucked underneath a bush of sprawling, heart-shaped leaves would be yellow squash blossoms that blessed us with fresh squash in the blink of an eye. In our household, zucchini was a summer staple. In fact, there was never a dinner where we didn’t eat zucchini, whether it was enjoyed as a main dish or a simple side. Parmesan-crusted zucchini spears were enjoyed with baked salmon and a creamy mushroom risotto. Slices of homemade zucchini frittata were eaten with roasted potatoes and a mixed greens salad. Slow-roasted zucchini seasoned with lemon and herbs were paired with grilled chicken kebabs. And chunks of cooked zucchini were slyly thrown into soups and spaghetti.
I understand now why zucchini was being shoved down my throat shortly after my mother’s first harvest. It was an effort to get rid of her bountiful supply of courgettes before they succumbed to spoilage.
For decades, the summer squash has earned a bad reputation for being abundant, rather too abundant. As written by Bon Appétit’s former food director Carla Lalli Music, “Zucchini is like the glass of water that’s been sitting on your bedside table while you were away all weekend during a heatwave, and you know your cats have been drinking out of it.”
The list of insults continued ("“Zucchini is like your husband’s gym socks. Even when they’re clean, you’d rather not touch them") until Music made her feelings about the squash glaringly clear: “Zucchini takes something that should be good — fresh summer produce — and makes it bad, just by, like, being itself.”
In culinary spaces and literature, zucchini is often treated in the same manner as weeds, shamed for growing untamed and unabashedly. Zucchini is one of the easiest plants to grow in any kind of soil. Its production is often described as “cyclical,” meaning the more you harvest, the more the plant will produce. A single zucchini plant can produce between six and 15 pounds of zucchini in one growing period. That’s up to 20 fruits depending on the size at harvest.
“Zucchini, the slender green squash from Europe that has become an American favorite, is overrunning the gardens, as it does every year at this time,” wrote food writer Florence Fabricant for The New York Times back in August 1980. “Plants that seemed to be picked clean the day before are found bearing a new crop by the next morning.”
Fabricant pointed to the influx of zucchini-themed cookbooks released at the time, saying, “We are now as deluged with zucchini cookbooks as we are with zucchini.” There’s “The Zucchini and Carrot Cookbook” by Ruth Conrad Bateman; “The Zucchini Cookbook,” published by Planned Parenthood of Santa Cruz County, California; “Zucchini Cookery” by Virg and Jo Lemley; “The Zucchini Cookbook” by Paula Simmons and “Zucchini Lover's Cookbook” by Addie Gonshorowski. The recipes are plentiful and experimental, ranging from zucchini with walnuts and zucchini pancakes to zucchini with Bagna càuda sauce and zucchini lasagna (the pasta is replaced with thin slices of squash).
Zucchini cookbooks are still plentiful today, underscoring an ongoing desire to find new ways to enjoy zucchini and squash (pun intended) “zucchini anxiety.” Per an old thread posted in the r/Cooking subreddit, a desperate home cook with two pounds of surplus zucchini on their hands inquired, “Help! I have too much zucchini! What should I cook before it spoils?” Similarly, another homecook burdened by dozens of zucchini asked for ways to make the squash more palatable (“Help me get over my prejudice against zucchini before I drown in the stupid vegetable…I’ve always found the texture unpleasant and the flavor uninspiring, but I also really hate to waste food,” they wrote). Just this week, a self-proclaimed zucchini hater sought out recipes that mask zucchini’s “unappealing” texture and “watery” taste.
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It’s interesting how a humble squash taps into such rich emotional territory: shame, excess, disgust and the pressure to transform glut into value. But frankly, zucchini deserves so much more love. Its most criticized traits are actually its biggest assets. Unlike most vegetables and squash, zucchini is highly versatile considering that it can be cooked in various ways and used in sweet and savory dishes. There’s also power in zucchini’s lack of bold flavors, making it a blank slate for home cooks and chefs alike to experiment with.
As for its abundance problem, zucchini has been described as a “gateway drug” to combat rising food insecurity through community gardening and community engagement. According to a 2023 EdNC report titled, “Zucchini and a goal of zero hunger: This school opened a community garden just in time for summer break,” zucchini along with squash, cucumbers and watermelon are planted in the West Oxford Elementary School community garden. The school is located in Granville County, North Carolina, where 18 percent of children under the age of 18 experience food insecurity and 59 percent of children receive free and reduced school meals, according to the 2021-2022 Granville County Profile. In 2021, data from Granville County indicated that 21 percent of children under the age of 18 experienced food insecurity while the percentage of students who received free and reduced school meals remained unchanged.
That’s all to say that zucchini doesn’t deserve the overwhelming hate it gets. Yes, it may be overbearing, but at its core it’s humble, uniquely delicious and a quiet problem solver.
