My baby marrows are growing up

Baby marrow is such a versatile vegetable that is actually a fruit. In culinary terms the marrow, zucchini or courgette, is treated as a savoury dish but botanically it is a fruit.

I suppose what you call them depends on one’s country of origin. It originates from the Americas but the cylindrical and harvested immature “zucchini” were developed in northern Italy. This was after the introduction of cucurbits from the Americas. Zucca is the Italian word for pumpkin or squash and ‘ina’ is ‘little’, so together it is ‘little squash’.

As its name suggests, the baby marrow can be prepared in many ways. For this reason, it is a standard fruit/vegetable in the Towerwater garden. The speed at which the fruit develops is astounding. It is as if the fruit develops overnight. In the space of one week, the fruit gets quite big and I end up with teenage marrows.

It is still a luxury to harvest the dark-green beautiful fruit. In their more mature state they remain soft and buttery- delicious. Roasted, they add a soft buttery smokiness to a Sunday salad enjoyed under the oaks at Towerwater.

I might not always be able to harvest the marrows as babies but grown-up they are still delicious, roasted or any other way…