Recently there was much celebration in our house. My dear wife (MDW) came in from the garden, and with a face flushed with acute distress, advised me that she had just picked the last of this season’s crop of courgettes. I cheered loudly and suggested going out to dinner to celebrate. MDW told me we had to eat at home and try and reduce our supply of courgettes that totally covered the kitchen bench, spilled onto the floor, and threatened to invade the laundry.
Until that moment I never knew I had friends who suffered from such quiet desperation in their lives that they could stoop so low. As I was clearly also having a bad day, I responded with a post suggesting that courgettes should be classified as noxious weeds and be banned. This facetious remark drew a furious response from a Facebook friend of my friend, who said she loved courgettes and found my suggestion unnecessary and quite offensive. If anyone knows how to instantly de-friend or block anyone who uses the word ‘courgette’ in a Facebook post, please let me know as I can’t find anything in the privacy settings.
Every year within living memory, that is ever since MDW established a garden, she has planted two courgette plants. Ignoring the best gardening advice regarding the rotation of crops they are planted in the same place, occasionally watered, and we stand back at a distance and watch them go berserk. They have never failed. As we have an almost total lack of success in giving away any of our surplus crop, it seems half the local population also grows courgettes successfully. Occasionally, we mysteriously and anonymously leave unmarked bags of courgettes in the kitchens and public areas of organisations we belong to in the hope that someone might take pity on them and take them home, Usually a week or two later we have to slink in and throw them into the rubbish.
Our attempts to dispose of surplus courgettes have become so extreme that our son-in-law refuses to visit us during the courgette growing season and we have caused domestic disharmony between him and our daughter – when she visits and we insist on her taking some courgettes home with her. We are very cunning – we tell her she can’t have any of the beans they like if she doesn’t take at least two courgettes as well. It seems fair to us.
We have become expert in adding courgettes to every imaginable dish. It is hardly surprising that you can add courgette to so many different things. After all they are totally tasteless and full of water. They are the ideal organic bulking agent. I’m surprised that some food manufacturer hasn’t found a use for tonnes of pulped courgette – perhaps they have and they aren’t telling us. In the meantime we force down courgette ridden chocolate cakes, loaves, muffins, quiches, fritters, and any dish where using courgettes counts as a green vegetable.
I should point out that I am using the word ‘courgette’ rather loosely here. If you visit a green grocer or the fruit and vege aisle of your supermarket, you will find that their courgettes are all quite small and very regular in size. What we grow are courgettes with attitude and personality, also commonly known as small marrows… or the ones that got away. To grow regular and consistent sized courgettes needs an army of agricultural workers on courgette watch twenty-four hours a day and armed with tape-measures. The home gardener who wants to sleep at night can never grow regular courgettes as the little sods become small monsters over night as we sleep.
However, the courgette story it is not entirely all bad. As a direct result of the surplus of courgettes and MDW’s suggestions, or even threats, that I should cook more meals my culinary skills inspired by watching thousands of episodes of Master Chef, have improved out of sight. I can do things with courgettes that many people could barely imagine. My fritters are to die for. In fact if you took the courgette out of my last batch of corn and courgette fritters they would almost have been perfect. I wonder if they know on Master Chef that adding sweet hot chilli sauce improves the flavour of everything?
By Terry Carson.
This is another of Terry’s posts on GrownUps. If you like Terry’s work, you can read more from him here.