Talk:Zucchini/Archive 1

Archive 1

Constistency Police

It is like the courgette —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.8.245.240 (talk) 19:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

This has to be fixed. The Article is called ZUCCHINI yet it calls them corguettes in the middle. for a reference point, that's like calling orange "yellow-red" in the middle of the article. This is going to be changed for consistency, as it is very rough. Change it back if you want to, but please, don't. calling something by another name can be quite confusing when it switches back and forth. Sneakernets 23:39, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

so now, what is it called in Canada, Singapore, and other English speaking places?

I live in Canada and we call them Zucchinis, but where I live (in Rural South western ontario) they aren't very popular and a lot of people I know probably dont have a clue as to what a zucchini is in the first place.70.49.42.37 4 July 2005 15:02 (UTC)

// I didn't know the things in the north uk as a child, though now they're common. I believe "courgette" is a used a fair bit more more than "zucchini", though the latter word will be well know by the food-snob middle-classes (I don't know what people who haven't a clue would call them).

Maybe, if by "food snob" you mean "North American" :). (Around here they're just called "zukes", rhymes with the "cukes" in the photo.) SB Johnny 00:14, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Boooooo! This article should definitely be under "courgette" rather than zucchini, since everyone knows this is its true name. (Although I must admit zucchini is a pretty cool word, but then so is courgette so Shut up, noisy man!)

Courgette is defintenately the coorect English term. Zucchini is borrowed from Italian, much like chickpeas are called "garbanzo" or broad beans are called "fava" due to Italians.67.169.43.113 08:39, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

And Courgette is borrowed from French.

And French is the language of love. But Spanish is the language of Mexico, and it's the Mexicans who pick them, so what's the Spanish word? 172.56.26.180 (talk) 13:04, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

This plant as it is known today was bred in Italy from American breeding stock. Considering this, I believe zucchini is likely to be the original term for the plant as it was Italy that introduced it to the rest of Europe and indeed, even to North America where squash has its origins. -RebelWithoutASauce

"In Mexico, zucchini is often used for a light cream soup, sopa de flor de calabaza, and it is quite popular in a variation of the traditional quesadillas, becoming quesadillas de flor de calabaza. Zucchini is also used in a variety of other dishes (rajas), and as a side dish ornament." This is not correct at all. The sopa de flor de calabaza is made with the flower, not with the zucchini. And the quesadillas are also made with just the flower. Zucchini is used in other dishes (like calabacitas and elote = zucchini and corn cooked with onions and tomato sauce) but definitely not as rajas. Rajas are basically stripes of chile, the ones served in quesadillas are from chile poblano, which is combined a lot with flor de calabaza in enchiladas and crepas. Also, I don't recall seeing zucchini as a side dish ornament, maybe a couple of times in some fancy restaurants but it is certainly not the norm. Andrea Reyes (Mexico City & The Hague) March 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.140.21.231 (talk) 22:53, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

You're giving me a heck of an appetite! 172.56.26.180 (talk) 13:04, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

I live in South Africa and we call them baby marrows. People refer to them as courgettes sometimes but baby marrow is the term most commenly used. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.203.160.106 (talk) 12:26, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I have always called them courgettes and am only looking at this because I am moving to the US from the UK and thought I should learn the language. Perhaps we need to accept that regardless of what guidlines are written the names will normally follow an american naming convention. The reasons cited here (the Italian provenance of the word) is the exact reason that the aubergine article is called eggplant (because Aubergine sounds French and Eggplant sounds English). See also the Rutabaga/Swede bitch fight, even though more more people may use one term the fact that majority of English speaking wikipedia users are probably American means that those who shout loudest will get their own way. I must admit I couldn't really care less, in fact I can't believe I just wrote what I did. Good Day!

Maybe the title should be altered to represent both ways in which this veg is named within English speaking countries. I might incorrectly suggest however that Courgette is the original spelling within the English language, this comes from a possibly under informed opinion that UK English was around way before americans started removing U and adding Z's? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.6.8.25 (talk) 12:19, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Spelling reform is a very good thing. Hurray for the red, white, and blue! 172.56.26.236 (talk) 13:19, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Looks Good now! Haha. Sneakernets (talk) 08:15, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

In England they often used to be called baby marrows (as apparently they still are in South Africa), but in the last 20 years or so the standard name has been 'courgette'. But 'zucchini' is also a familiar name. I can remember when supermarkets sold them as 'baby marrows', but they stopped that a long time ago.86.157.120.174 (talk) 13:49, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

New Photo

As chance would have it, I've had to buy 2 Zucchinis or Courgettes as we call them in the UK. So I've uploaded a picture of them before I got stuck into them.

Enjoy.

--Quatermass 21:33, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

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intro

It seems to me that the intro section of the article (the bit before the Table of Contents) is awfully long. Could any of it be moved to the body of the article (the bit after the Table of Contents)? 64.216.106.158 14:45, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that the article should mention somewhere, that this vegetable has a reputation in USA for being home-gardened in greater than useful quantities, often in humorous context.

Sneak some zucchini onto your neighbor's porch night

under the miscellaneous information there is mention about joke about farmers having too much zucchini, so why not mention the holiday related to it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.49.21.34 (talk) 01:08, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

It may be a fruit

We all know that tomato is a fruit for a long time, but that's because there are seeds within a tomato. So does zucchini and other squashes. I'm not spamming or anything, but apples and any so-called "vegetable" (like tomato) with seed(s) inside are fruits. How can we find sources of it? —Gh87 02:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is a "fruit", but that does not mean it isn't a vegetable. See the Wiki article about vegetables for a description of what a vegetable is. "Vegetable" is simply a culinary term, not a botanical one. Something that is botanically a fruit (Tomatoes, zucchinis etc) can in culinary terms be called a vegetable if it is used mainly in savoury dishes, not sweet dishes. Swampy 124.179.92.243 (talk) 02:03, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

fill out the taxobox

why is the taxobox incomplete for this species. I was trying to figure out what family this vegetable is vs cucumber, but apparently thats too much information to be allowed on common species pages--108.1.197.209 (talk) 02:48, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

History and etymology

This section contains a contradiction regarding the origin of Zucchini. First it says that Zucchini comes from the Americas: "Zucchini, like all summer squash, has its ancestry in the Americas", before then saying that it comes from Europe (in the next sentence). In either case this paragraph needs making clearer. Peter Law (talk) 11:34, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Per Forskal, in his Flora Aegyptiaco-Arabica Sive Descriptiones Plantarum Quas per Aegyptum Inferiorem et Arabiam Felicem (which was published posthumously in 1775 following Forskal's death in 1763), says that "Sakiz kabagi" (the Turkish name for zucchini) was first cultivated in Istanbul: "Cucurbita pepo? Sakis-chappach : sie dicta a SAKIS, loco Archipel, unde primum introductus in hortos Constantp." (p XXXXIV). Although the species Cucurbita pepo is of American origin, the variety that today we call zucchini was developed by farmers in the Old World. A similar example of this phenomenon is the paprika pepper, a variety of Capsicum annuum developed not in the home continent of the species but apparently in Turkey, since "Turkish Red Pepper" was listed among the foreign seeds planted in a garden in Hungary in in 1569 (Dewitt, Dave and Nancy Gerlach, The Whole Chile Pepper Book, Little, Brown Co., Boston 1990, referenced by Dr. David D. Friedman in an article at http://www.redkaganate.org/household/cookunam.shtml). A Hungarian dictionary dated 1604 refers to "Turkish pepper" (Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999 p 573).Andelip (talk) 00:42, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Round fatties

I added a short mention of a new kind of American round zucchini, known as "8 ball". I was fixin' to upload a photograph when I noticed that the article already has a picture of a very similar European zucchini, labeled "Tondo di Piacenza". I see little sourcing online about whether these two are related, other than a blog that does not seem authoritative. This blog[1] seems reasonably trustworthy at least for the proposition that there are lots of varieties of round zucchini, so under the circumstances I hope we can make a partial exception here to WP:SELFPUB. Perhaps there is a technical source out there somewhere. - Wikidemon (talk) 16:11, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Singular and plural

Should it be mentioned in the article that zucchini is an Italian plural form, but is treated as singular in English (as in the article: "...zucchini is...", with the plural usually the same as the singular? APW (talk) 11:19, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Aironeverde (talk) 17:19, 31 July 2009 (UTC)Zucchini is not a singular word, and the use of singular verbs with the plural noun is quite jarring. The article makes an even worse impression when it adds an "s" to an already plural word--a particularly laughable error that makes the writing lose credibility.

• Zucchini is a singular word in English, regardless of whether it is in Italian.--Kenji Yamada (talk) 01:57, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
• Is the plural 'two zucchini' or 'two zucchinis'? The article uses both. Ed Avis (talk) 11:08, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

English allows both forms: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/zucchiniKdammers (talk) 05:07, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Origin of zucchini

>Zucchini, like all summer squash, has its ancestry in the Americas[citation needed]. However, the varieties of squash typically called "zucchini" were indeed developed in Italy, many generations after their introduction from the "New World".< But the summer squash Wik article says Meso-America.Kdammers (talk) 05:09, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Current photo of yellow squash

One of th e photos is of "courgette jaune" according to the photos documentaiton. While these may be "courgettes," I don't think they are "zucchini." Kdammers (talk) 05:11, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

name

I don't know if we need all the languages or countries where it is called what (we could add Polish, Hungarian, Belarussian, and Armenian for starters to the zucchini side) other than Italy, France and the English-speaking countries. Kdammers (talk) 05:15, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. This is the English-language wikipedia - we only need to consider what the thing is called in English speaking countries. I'll delete the others. Wilus (talk) 13:38, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

File:This-is-a-Zucchini.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

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Subdominable calories?

"The zucchini vegetable is low in subdominable calories (approximately 15 food calories per 100 g fresh zucchini)"

I wasn't sure what the word "subdominable" meant, so I searched for it and found only references to, or copy-pasted portions of, this article. Possibly a made-up word? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SaxifrageSaxifrage (talk • contribs) 05:23, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

There is a word for foods which provide less energy than it takes to digest them, which escapes me -- but consider canned "La Choy Fancy Mixed Chinese Vegetables". A half-cup serving contains 15 Calories, probably mostly from sugar in the red bell peppers. The other ingredients, bean sprouts (mung), water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, and mushrooms, are practically devoid of nutritional energy, so the energy required to chew and digest them gives them this quality, of actually using up more Calories than they supply. Whatever the word is, I'm sure "subdominable" isn't it (isn't that a type of snowman?). Besides, being low in such Calories isn't a good thing, if you want to lose weight. Summer squash is a great thing to fill up on if you're trying to avoid excess Calories, because it's low in fat, starch, sugar, and protein but high in vitamins, potassium, and bulk. 172.56.26.94 (talk) 12:10, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Start in California?

> It was almost certainly brought over by Italian immigrants, and probably got its start in California.

Does this imply that it got its start in agriculture in California, or that it first arrived there via Italian immigrants... in California? Seems like an odd first stop for Italian immigrants in that time period... --babbage 03:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems plausible to me that lots of Italian immigrants were attracted to California, especially at times when many other fortune-seekers were, and the prospects for agriculture in its Mediterranean climate (unique in the United States) and fertile, virgin soils sounded quite appealing to food-lovers, farmers, viticulturists, and winemakers. Californian wines have long been rather highly regarded in Europe. Many of the best have Italian names and histories. I have no opinion regarding the origins of individual varieties of zucchini, except that economic considerations have probably dominated decisions concerning which vegetables appear in the world's supermarkets today. For many Italian immigrants, New Jersey (the "garden state") may have been their first stop (perhaps after being disappointed with Brooklyn), and California their dream destination. 208.54.85.225 (talk) 12:40, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Images

About 3/4 of the green zucchini-like things in the image are actually cucumbers... perhaps it would be worth a new photo. --Russell E 13:18, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Misleading photo, true.

___________

I agree, the market photo is definetely misleading and should be replaced.

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Can we get information on how physically big it is?

I've never seen one of these fruit in my supermarket in the UK and I can't tell how big (or small) it is.

--Quatermass 10:36, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, about a half-pound or quarter-kilo. 208.54.85.190 (talk) 12:44, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

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Vegetable or fruit?

The article states both:

• "Zucchini (US and Australian English) or courgette (New Zealand and British English) is a vegetable" and;
• "the flower (known as Flor de Calabaza) is preffered over the fruit"

Is the courgette/zucchini (as in the part normally eaten) a fruit or a vegetable, or am I misunderstanding what the article is saying? Leithp 14:57, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with that. See vegetable -- vegetables can be any part of a plant, including the fruit. --Russell E 13:16, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

It's got to be vegetable; it isn't animal or mineral. By the way, the flowers are delightful, both pretty and edible. If you've got them (from the garden), you might as well use them. Add a little pizazz a tavola. 172.56.26.132 (talk) 12:55, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

fruit is a the result of the fertile part of the plant producing a seed containing unit, as in fleshy fruits, dry fruits are slightly different. a vegetable, should technically refer only vegetative portions of a plant. while the zucchini should be classified as a fruit, it is sometimes lumped with vegetables because of the lack of sugar compared to more typical "fruits" likes apples and oranges. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.49.21.34 (talk) 01:02, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

British usage

I'm really confused by this article and i think it needs clarifying for British usage - I have only ever heard Americans and non-English usage of the word 'zucchini' my understanding (and some quick research seems to back this up) is we have squashes of which types are marrow, pumpkin, gourds (which are non-edible) and courgettes which are a small (related) variety of marrows

I'm not going to change anything but note that Marrow ends up here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucurbita

eg of british usage http://www.barfoots.co.uk/products-services/our-products/courgette/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.103.17.72 (talk) 23:00, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

As a British gardener, I do agree that the article does not explain British usage well. A recent attempt to add something useful was reverted by Mysterious Whisper. The facts are clear:

• There are a range of cultivars of Cucurbita pepo.
• Some cultivars are grown for the purpose of harvesting cylindrical fruit about 9 inches long (say ±3 inches). A fruit like this is called a "zucchini" in English-speaking North America and a "courgette" in Britain. A plant used to produce such fruits is also called a "zucchini" or "courgette". Nowadays the cultivars used for this purpose tend to be bushy rather than trailing or vining.
• Some cultivars are grown for the purpose of harvesting cylindrical fruit at a considerably larger size, say over 1 ft and often over 2 ft in length. A fruit like this is called a "marrow" in Britain and is virtually unknown in North America. A plant used to produce such fruit is also called a "marrow". Because of the weight of a marrow, they can only be produced in quantity on a trailing or vining plant; a bush would be bent over or broken.
• Nevertheless it's possible to produce what the British would call a "marrow" on a cultivar grown as a zucchini/courgette and it's possible to use small fruits from a cultivar normally used for marrows as zucchinis/courgettes. So there is a close relationship between the two. The redirect of Marrow to Cucurbita is not WP:NPOV with respect to British usage.

Writing all this up with sources is possible, but I don't have time just now. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:18, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Please pardon my ignorance, I don't know what British usage is. I had assumed that the term "squash" wasn't used, and therefore wonder whether Pattypan squash is called a courgette. Is that not so? Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:08, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

@Sminthopsis84: As Mysterious Whisper noted, terminology is confused and confusing, and furthermore changing. "Squash" is definitely used in the UK, although they were more of a rarity when I was young. I think of them as "odd-shaped" and brightly coloured fruits – odd-shaped meaning not cylindrical like a zucchini/courgette or marrow. A pattypan squash is a squash here, for sure. A courgette is, as far as I can tell, just the same as a zucchini: we use the French word, North Americans the Italian word.

There is, of course, also the need to consider Australian, New Zealand, South African, etc. usage, which I think is also different from the US and English-speaking Canada. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:39, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

"A recent attempt to add something useful was reverted by Mysterious Whisper"

A fine and civil way to start a discussion.

The offending text was added to the first paragraph of the lede. I probably wouldn't have reverted it if it had been added elsewhere in the article, but the lede of an article is "a summary of its most important aspects". While the local terminology is mentioned later in the article, Cucurbita terminology is so complicated and confused that there would need to be a detailed and extremely well sourced section in the body of the article before I would support anything more than a polished version of "Cucurbita terminology is complicated, confused, and varies greatly with locality" in the lede.

Further, as my edit summary said, I left the mention of courgette in the first sentence, and the "useful" text in question stated "Marrow squash may mean zucchini or several other cultivars in the squash family.", leading me to believe the Cucurbita redirect was correct. I'm not opposed to the redirect being changed, but a bolded mention in the first paragraph of the lede shouldn't be added without such a redirect and/or detailed, well-sourced content in the body of the article.

ʍw 16:58, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I was not aware of the discussion over at User_talk:Sminthopsis84#Zucchini until just now; it probably should have been held here in the first place. ʍw 17:02, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

@Mysterious Whisper: whoops, I apologize for not being clear. I intended my opening remark to be read as A recent attempt to add something useful.... As it was written, reversion, moving or rewriting was quite appropriate and I wasn't criticizing your action. I entirely agree both that Cucurbita terminology is .. complicated and confused and that anything added needs to be well-sourced, which is why I didn't add anything, but rather wrote a reply on this talk page to the confused British IP.

I suspect that Cucurbita pepo is the place to discuss the uses of its varying cultivars, not here. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:33, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Again

I'm tempted to revert this similar new addition. While these new edits make some attempt to include referenced information in the body of the article as well as a mention in the lede, there are still some serious problems, including:

• Marrow is a disambiguation page (as it should be); it does not redirect here and therefore should not be bolded in the lede. Vegetable marrow, as noted above, redirects to cucurbita. It was suggested above that this may not be correct; this should be cleaned up before anything is changed or added here.

RESPONSE: Done. Disambiguation page is now corrected. (comment by 217.43.38.204, 12 October 2015)

• Importantly: the reference provided does not support the text added. I could find no information in said book about terminology and how it varies with locality,

RESPONSE: The crucial passage is on page 68: "Until recently the vegetable marrow - large, oblong and striped, was the dominant member. Overgrown when picked and insipid when cooked, they are still widely used as a boiled vegetable or an edible casing for minced beef or other stuffing. Where space is limited, grow a bush rather than a trailing variety. Courgettes have begun to take over and these are nothing more than marrows cut at the immature stage - the flesh is firmer and the taste superior." (comment by 217.43.38.204, 12 October 2015)

in fact, under "Marrows, Courgette, Squash, Pumpkin", it says, "There are no exact definitions for each type and the dividing lines are blurred." Indeed, the chart on page 69 of this book seems to suggest that "marrow" (as in vegetable marrow) either includes all other cucurbita varieties (including courgette/zucchini, squash (summer and winter), and pumpkin), which would support the current redirect; or that "marrow" is different from all of those varieties, in which case a new article might be written (the picture given for a "marrow" looks, to me, like a semi-wild heirloom cultivar of cucurbita argyrosperma, uncommon in most of the United States, but popular in some parts of the South as a pumpkin/winter squash, where it is known as "green-striped cushaw"). ʍw 22:34, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

RESPONSE: No. Dr Hessayon is quite clear and consistent here on page 69: "COURGETTE varieties - These varieties are compact bush marrows which are grown exclusively for their immature fruits." As for the striping: here in England we grow mainly non-striped marrows, although the striped ones are not uncommon. Both are called marrows. The explicit term "vegetable marrow" is not used in British shops/markets or among gardeners - it serves only in reference works to distinguish the vegetable from bone marrow and other uses. (comment by 217.43.38.204, 12 October 2015)

Some background information: Dr Hessayon is a Cypriot Greek who immigrated decades ago to Britain and studied botany at university here. Also, Cyprus was a British colony. I do not know him personally, but I therefore would expect him to use British English. Also, my experience of most British (and American) people is that they would know little or nothing about the intricacies of the botanical names and identities of the vegetables they are shopping except if they are avid gardeners. A similar fraught area of miscommunication is "maize - corn - sweetcorn" and "eggplant - aubergine". What we really need is an international Wiki-conference to agree on a worldwide English/French/Italian nomenclature of vegetables, before anyone gets poisoned by gluten, solanine or cucurbitacin (section on toxicity to follow). (comment by 217.43.38.204, 12 October 2015)

The facts are clear, and easily sourced from British gardening books. The fashion for eating immature marrows, called in Britain "courgettes", is relatively recent in Britain (say the last 40 years). Sudell (1966) doesn't mention courgettes, although he has a section on "vegetable marrow", noting both trailing (vining) and bush types and saying "cut when young". Witham Fogg (1966) wrote "Courgettes These are really very tender baby marrows which have long been popular in France. ... Cooked and eaten with butter they form a very palatable dish." He devotes a page and a half to (vegetable) marrows and less than half a page to courgettes, which he clearly regards as something new to Britain.

The difference between what British gardeners call a "marrow" and a "courgette" is not just in maturity. The cultivars used for each differ, and large marrows have to be grown on trailing or vining cultivars, whereas to save space courgettes are now usually grown on bush cultivars – a bush simply would not support a full-sized marrow. Again from Witham Fogg (1966) "The true French courgette never grows as big as the British varieties. ... There are several types now available ... including Zucchini ... and Cocozelle .. generally reckoned to have originated from Italy." He appears to regard "Zucchini" as a "type" or "variety" (what we would now call a cultivar), as evidenced by the capital letter.

How much, if any, of this history is worth adding to the article I'm not sure. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:40, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi Peter Coxhead. Thanks for this. Just one detail though: in the English usage in my neighbourhood (East Anglia), a trailing plant can produce both courgettes when picked young, and marrows when allowed to mature. Would you agree? (It may well be that a bush variety offers only the courgette option, as you say. But my question pertains to the trailing variety.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.43.38.204 (talk) 11:48, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. British terminology relates primarily to use not cultivar type. If you supported it well doubtless a bush variety (which mainly differs in having shorter internodes) could produce what you and I would call a "marrow" and certainly a trailing variety can be used to produce "courgettes". Different cultivars are bred and sold for the two uses, but this doesn't mean that they can't be used to produce the other kind.

It's really on this issue – use versus "botany" – that we seem to disagree with Mysterious Whisper. The "botany" – the cultivars, cultivar groups, etc. of Cucurbita and their names – is indeed exceedingly confused, confusing and unclear. But normal everyday British usage is not: small cylindrical fruits are "courgettes", big ones "marrows" (with of course no clear line between them). Peter coxhead (talk) 17:23, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

@IP: So, that book suggests that marrows exist, and are closely related to Zucchini. It's a good source for that much. However, the the edits to the article (and redirect) also added: "In Britain, Ireland and New Zealand, a fully grown courgette is referred to as a marrow." Where in the book are "Britain, Ireland and New Zealand" mentioned specifically, as all the places and the only places where such terminology is used? I couldn't find that. ʍw 16:27, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

I've since removed that part; "marrow" seems to be the term used everywhere mature zucchini are popular. ʍw 18:54, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

RESPONSE: I took the Britain/Ireland/NZ area from https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/courgette. I suspect South Africa should belong in this group as well. Does anyone know a South African gardener to check? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.43.38.204 (talk) 19:40, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: "The facts are clear, and easily sourced..." I beg to differ; the facts are confused, controversial, and equally reliable sources for them tend to contradict each other. Still, we mustn't rely on our personal knowledge to try and 'correct' the sources, (as above, you start off with sources saying courgettes are simply immature marrow, then contradict them by saying they're different cultivars) as this terminology varies so much by time and place that what we were once taught may be verifiably wrong here and now. I agree with your sentiment above: Writing all this up with sources is possible, but I don't have time just now.; to create an accurate geographical and chronological mapping of cucurbita terminology would require a wide variety of the best-quality reliable sources, and would be a tall order indeed. ʍw 16:27, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm leaning towards splitting "marrow" off into a new article; summarizing everything said above:

• courgette = zucchini
• marrow = fully-mature zucchini, though cultivars are optimized for either marrow -or- zucchini
• zucchini = immature marrow, though cultivars are optimized for either zucchini -or- marrow

If that's correct, then while marrows are very closely related to zucchini (same species, similar cultivars), they are different, at least as much as (for example) Butternut squash and Tromboncino (squash) are different (similar-yet-different cultivars, different growth habit, different uses), and deserving of separate articles. ʍw 16:27, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Separate articles might work, I agree, provided that it's clear that the primary distinction is use not cultivars. This would also allow proper coverage of giant marrow growing competitions in the UK (see e.g. this article). Growing giant pumpkins competitively seems go on in many countries if you do a Google search, but I can only find giant marrow competitions in the UK.

Historically, "marrow = fully-mature zucchini/courgette" is the wrong way round. A zucchini/courgette is an immature marrow; marrows or vegetable marrows were known in the UK and the US before zucchinis/courgettes.

Interestingly, Hedrick (1928), The vegetables of New York, p.50 supports Witham Fogg (1966) in treating 'Zucchini' as a cultivar name, not a generic name for a kind of or use of particular Cucurbita fruits, so maybe this is where the current North American usage originates, rather than via taking over an Italian word. Hedrick describes the "English Vegetable Marrow" as "one of the earliest forms of marrow squash grown, but has never been exceedingly popular in this country" (not surprising in view of the much larger range of tastier squashes that can be grown in the US). Peter coxhead (talk) 17:11, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

I've started a stub, Marrow (vegetable), using the book source discussed here.

The term vegetable marrow has long since fallen out of use in the United States (I never hear it, and only see it used casually in American books many decades old), and while growers here know a zucchini can be left to mature, such is almost never done, being considered far inferior to the immature specimens and to proper winter squash, so there may not be a common American name for marrow. ʍw 18:04, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

I just added marrow to Template:Squashes and pumpkins, though I'm not entirely sure whether it should be listed as a summer squash or winter squash. While it's associated with zucchini, a summer squash, it's picked mature and used more like a winter squash, so I've listed it under winter squash. ʍw 16:17, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

References

Italy

"The zucchini or courgette originates from Italy." That's utter nonsense. I doubt a form of squash would suddenly "originate" on a peninsula lying off a large landmass where no other squashes existed. No wonder there's no citation for such a preposterous statement. The New World saw the evolution of an incredible variety of squashes, and that is a very important aspect of Native American history, culture, and cuisine. Squash, I believe, is one of the "three sisters", plants which were cultivated by hundreds of diverse tribes, because of their importance in providing a balanced, varied diet, and because of their suitability for growing together in small gardens. I believe the other two sisters were corn and beans, but tomatoes may have been among them. In any case, I have no doubt that squashes in general were very important foods in both North and South America thousands of years before they were brought, by humans, to the Old World. 172.56.27.126 (talk) 11:41, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

I deleted "Origin Italy, 15th century (?)" from the first photo caption. We could go on arguing about the place of origin, depending on how we define "origin", but the article refers to the role of Italy in the 19th century. A Peruvian squash was not brought to Italy in the 15th century (1401-1500). Kotabatubara (talk) 15:04, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

What appears to be the case is that a specific cultivar 'Zucchini' was grown in the US – a cultivar which then gave its name to a particular group of squashes. See e.g. Hedrick (1928), The vegetables of New York, p.50. Precisely where this cultivar originated is not clear, but Hedrick says that in the US the name was first used in California. "Origin" here refers to the group of cultivars grown for use as zucchini/courgettes rather than to squashes as a whole, as the IP 172.56.27.126 seems to think. It's easy to find British sources which give the origin as France or Italy, but this probably just reflects the fact that the habit of growing immature marrows as courgettes was introduced from there. I have searched around, but never found any source which convinces me of the origin of the group of squashes used in this way. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:32, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Addendum: it is worth noting, though, that if you read through Hedrick's section on Cucurbita pepo he mentions seeds having been introduced from places such as China, Egypt, Italy, Spain and England. It seems clear that once C. pepo began to be grown outside the Americas, development of new cultivars took place there as well and some of them were then re-introduced. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:43, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Courgettes and marrows.

The thin-skinned cultivars are courgettes in the UK, whereas the thick-skinned cultivars (invariably striped in British supermarkets and greengrocers) are called vegetable marrows or just marrows. They are all marrow family, of course, and I agree that marrows came first, but I'm told that, in the US, the small ones are called zucchini whatever the thickness of skin or colouring. Is this true? It's all very confusing. Dbfirs 20:14, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Historically, as the ref currently 13 in the article (Hedrick, U.P.; Hall, F.H.; Hawthorn, L.R. & Berger, Alwin (1928). "Part 4: The cucurbits". The Vegetables of New York, Vol. 1) shows, there were many cultivars called "marrows" even in the US; just one cultivar was called "Zucchini". When marrows were popular in whatever country, there were cultivars of all colours, just as there are now of zucchinis/courgettes. Currently marrows aren't popular anywhere much (except to win prizes in UK shows), so there are few commercial cultivars. Hence the impression that to be called a "marrow" the fruit has to be green and striped – although in the UK, Marshalls sells seed of a plant described as a "marrow" that has fruit that is yellow and striped (see [2]).

Yes, it's confusing, because the terminology "marrow" versus "zucchini/courgette" refers to use, in particular the size at which they are harvested, not botanical difference. The only consistent difference I can see is that it would be difficult to grow really large marrows on a bush plant, because they would be too heavy for it, so fruits can only be allowed to develop to maximum marrow size on trailing cultivars. But there are trailing plants whose fruits can be harvested as courgettes, as the Thomson & Morgan website says: "There are several types of courgette, plants can be compact and bushy, trailing or climbing, and fruits can be green, striped or yellow." Peter coxhead (talk) 20:33, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

My point is that the cultivar is specifically developed for its use. The consistent difference is in the thickness of the skin and the distribution of the seeds, not in size or type of stalk. Overgrown cougettes would not be sold in British supermarkets as "marrows" because they would not be suitable for that purpose. Dbfirs 20:42, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

What would be sold in supermarkets is one issue (and I'd like to see a source for your assertion above), but it's simply not the case that cultivars are sold for one use or another: 'Honeygold' is sold for either as per [3]. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:59, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Peter coxhead, your latest additional sentence in the article contradicts the previous correct sentence. Please don't edit-war over this. Dbfirs 20:26, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

No, it says that a zucchini/courgette is a thin-skinned version of a marrow, which is precisely what the refs say. If you say the same thing the other way round, i.e. that a marrow is a thick-skinned version of a courgette, it implies (to me anyway) that courgettes came first and then thick-skinned ones were developed as marrows, whereas historically it was the other way round.

I'd be happy to see it phrased more neutrally, e.g. "One difference between zucchinis and marrows is that the former typically have thinner skin." Peter coxhead (talk) 20:39, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that phrasing would be better, but that is the difference between courgettes and marrows. In America, is the thick-skinned variety ever sold? Dbfirs 20:44, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

See the comment in the thread above this one by ʍw: The term vegetable marrow has long since fallen out of use in the United States (I never hear it, and only see it used casually in American books many decades old), and while growers here know a zucchini can be left to mature, such is almost never done, being considered far inferior to the immature specimens and to proper winter squash, so there may not be a common American name for marrow.

You need to read much of the discussion above – we've been over all this many times! Peter coxhead (talk) 20:56, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, in that case, zucchini seems to be the exact equivalent of courgette. Dbfirs 21:06, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that's what the article says. (In Canada, where things are often labelled in English and French, the English label will say "zucchini" and the French label "courgette". I've been told over there that "courgette" isn't English, it should be "zucchini"!) Peter coxhead (talk) 21:11, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Merge articles

Please merge article "Marrow (vegetable)" with this one. This one is better written. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.103.152.247 (talk) 05:37, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

occassionally toxic

I added a sentence to the introduction about their occasionally poisonous nature. It is covered, with references, in the toxicology section, but requires a higher profile. (Poisonings invariably come as a complete surprise) Mattymmoo (talk) 11:19, 24 July 2021 (UTC)