Autumn is approaching. The nights are cooling, the leaves are falling, and the zucca (pumpkin) is on the vine.
Besides referring to the whole world of orange, yellow and striped squashes now becoming available, be aware that zucca also means your noggin! However, it is not very complimentary to tell someone to usa la zucca. (literally, use your pumpkin).
We wouldn’t dream of insulting our dear readers, so today we are just being literal, because there are a lot of recipes, especially northern Italy, that use zucca. Romans simply sautee slices of this “foreign” vegetable in olive oil. So where to go for a recipe?
I made some calls and this easy recipe came down the gourd-vine via…. the neighbor of my Roman cousin’s Milanese husband’s step-mother.
Zucca al forno
1 pound of pumpkin, peeled and sliced into chunks, ½” thick, more or less
1 pound of brown skin mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 pound of red potatoes, thinly sliced
olive oil
parsley
oregano
several bits of real garlic (no garlic salt, powder, etc.!)
salt, pepper
Chop up the parsley, oregano, garlic, some salt, and mix with 4 tablespoons of oil.
Oil a baking pan and put in the veggies by layer, sprinkling each layer with the herb/oil mixture.
Bake in a medium oven, covered initially, for… as long as it takes!
Autumn in a pan. Enjoy!
– Contributed by GB (see bio), Editor, Italian Notebook.
You are such a funny guy.
We use zucca when making risotto, sometimes even with fresh ginger. Once someone masters the basic risotto recipe, it’s easy to use anything lying around for a great taste, raising leftovers to an exalted level.
Allora, domani, zucca per pranzo!
(Yes, he is funny.) Where are those girlfriends when you need them?
GB
You know I love you and your writing, but I have to correct you on something. The Italian south has as many, if not more ways of preparing la zucca. It is hardly a northern thing. In fact, as you know, zucca is from the Americas and was introduced to Italy via the Spanish — who controlled the south, not north.
I have serveral zucca recipes in my new book (Oct. 20 pub date), The Southern Italian Table (Potter).
That’s right! I just got back from Italy last night, and had two wonderful zucca dishes while I was visiting family in southern Abruzzo. One dish was risotto with zucca, which had the cubed up pieces of baked zucca and pancetta. Yum! The second dish was even better – zucca gnocchi. The baked zucca was substituted for regular potato when making the gnocchi, so that they had a beautiful golden color (not to mention delicious taste) and also pieces of zucca in the sauce.
GB-This Note reminds me that I am missing my Girlfriend Notes. Hopefully they are brewing up a few of their own….. The photos are so lovely by the way!
We had a funny experience with zucca one year in Florence. We made a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with pumpkin pie and invited all our Italian friends. Of course we were ridiculed for using this savory squash for a dessert, but in the end everyone was licking their plates. This was 20 years ago, I imagine the versatile zucca has been accepted as a dolce by now.
Arthur, I stand corrected! Let’s publish some of those southern ones too!
And “in bocca al lupo” with your book! 10 days…sheesh!!
Un salutone,
GB
I love the way you wrote this and the gourd-vine….too funny! Thanks for the recipe I will have to try it. There are pumpkins; how-be-it American ones all over here now…I cook w/o measuring so perfectly understand this and love the expression! Arthur can you let me or us know how to get your book? Please! My family hails from the south and would love to see and try your recipes. I would like to add my appreciation of the photos as well. I always love seeing pictures of the markets. On one of Lidia’s shows she was at an Italian market buying artichokes and peppers and they were so fresh looking and the colors of the food made me want to be there so badly. I’m sure the fruit and veggies actually taste as they should unlike most we get here that are picked so green that they have very little flavour anymore. Makes it hard to cook properly. Love San Marzano tomatoes they make a wonder gravy (yes! my Nonna called it gravy not sauce). Thanks as always for the articles and pictures.
You see, GB, whenever there’s an article about food there are always lots of replies. In my local town of Scansano there is only one way to cook zucche and that’s in the oven with rosemary and garlic (and oil of course). Any other suggestion is looked at with suspicion!
Well done GB. A splendid note and I particularly liked the byzantine route by which the recipe reached you! And gorgeous colour in the photos.
CHE GIOIA, GRAZIE PER LA RICETTA!!! Voglio provare a stasera. Grazie mille! Also there is the famous Sicilian “cucuzza,” a type of squash that can grow up to 4-5 feet long (but narrow), anyone who grew up with Sicilian mother will be familiar with the name in that’s what we were called when we angered her, “Testa di cucuzza!!!!!!!!!!”
Adorable!! Sounds delicious!
So great to meet you in Rome with your lovely mother!