Squash for all tastes

Summer squash are fun. They have crazy names such as eight ball, tromboncino, flying saucer and Yugoslavian finger fruit. They can be big or small, long or round, white, yellow, green or any combination.

Some of them look funny, too.

Take the tromboncino, for example, also known as the zucchini rampicante. “Tromboncino” means “French horn” in Italian, and if “rampicante” doesn’t translate as “rampant,” it should. The voracious vines of this particular squash devour entire garages as if they were rowboats in the grip of a giant squid.

The fruit, if they develop on the ground, curl into large, circular shapes. If hanging, they can descend for more than 3 feet from their stem to their bulging blossom end. Most interesting of all, when you slice a larger tromboncino, the neck is pale green inside like a normal zucchini, but the interior of the bulb is on its way to becoming something more like a butternut squash, with sweet and rich orange flesh … yet the skin still is soft and tender.

Now that’s a neat squash.

The squashes of the scallop and pattypan groups are particularly fun too. With their round, flying saucer shapes and bright splashes of yellow and green, they are quite beautiful, are lovely ornamentals and are perfectly suited for stuffing and serving whole.

It’s true that squash need a good bit of room, and a small garden may become overrun with only a couple plants, but squash are also hardy and adaptable. That’s why the aforementioned tromboncino is doing fine planted along the back of the garage, next to the white scallop, a couple of yellow straightnecks, and, yes, two good old hybrid zucchini. They are all against a wall facing north, away from other, more modest plants, and they are perfectly happy.

One trait all summer squash share is flavor adaptability. One summer squash can be substituted freely for another in recipes. Although texture and flavor may vary a bit from variety to variety, one joy of a squash is that it is bland, and lends itself to whatever you do with it.

Add it to anything — stir fries, vegetable soups, minestrone, even chili. Bread or batter it and deep fry it. Roll it in seasoned flour or cracker crumbs and pan fry it in olive oil. Bake it, roast it, cut it in slices and grill it, marinate it and skewer it on kebabs. Have it raw with dip, saute it in butter or bury it in cheese and bake it in a casserole. Stuff it, steam it with onions, bake it into muffins. It’s all good.

It’s fortunate that there are so many things to do with squash, because they also are heavy producers, and once they get going, there’s no stopping the loads of fruit.

No wonder the squash has been a favorite vegetable for more than 8,000 years.

Originating in southern Mexico and Guatemala, squash was one of the crops taken to back to Europe by Christopher Columbus. Now it is one of the most popular vegetables in Italy, as can be seen by the name zucchini, which means “little pumpkin” in Italian.

How best to enjoy your own harvest of summer squash, or that of your gardening friends and family, who are certainly trying to give you as much as you will take?

First, pick most squash fairly small, before the interior gets stringy and the seeds become tough. Store it, dry and unwashed, in a plastic bag in the crisper of your refrigerator. Handle it gently, and don’t let the stem of one squash puncture the tender skin of another, or you’ll wind up with a whole bag of squishy squash in no time.

Second, relax. There are a couple of good ways to preserve summer squash. Blanch thickly sliced or cubed squash for 30 seconds in boiling salted water, drain, rinse with cold water to cool, and pack into airtight baggies for the freezer. It will be soft and watery when you thaw it, but it will still be fine for soups and casseroles. Shredded squash for zucchini bread and muffins does not need to be blanched.

If you have a dehydrator, try drying squash slices. It rehydrates nicely and adds a nutty flavor to winter vegetable stews. To dry in the oven, slice thinly and leave the oven on the lowest setting, with the door propped open, until the slices are uniformly dry and leathery. Store in airtight bags.