By DAVID KITTREDGE
By David Kittredge
As summer slips on the banana peel of time, hurtling face first into its sultry dog days, the bountiful harvest becomes apparent to the successful vegetable gardener. Soon, that hoer of horticulture realizes that his lush garden landscape worthy of an idyllic pastoral poem with its greenery swayed by gentle breezes, surrounded by lilting songbirds and twittering butterflies has morphed into a scene from the “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” Multitudes of green alien pods have overtaken the garden, seemingly overnight, whereupon he becomes fraught with anxiety, not wanting to upset the vegetable cart of universal truths, by neglecting the age old axiom of “Waste not, want not.”
Instead our vigilant vegetablist, his ego composted with a thin layer of fear, must venture forth to beseech his unsuspecting neighbors with that most dreaded of questions: “Do you like zucchini?”
The neighbor immediately recoils in terror, their once amicable countenance contorted with repulsion, having had the alienlike pods thrusted upon them in years past, knowing the grave consequences of submission.
But then, the next door neighbor not wanting to appear too unneighborly, counters with the query: “How big are they?”
The harvester thinks the question to be a bit personal at first, but humbly bites his tongue and in the reverse fashion of that of a bragging fisherman, holds his hands apart showing the length of the zucchini to be about 12 inches, in a diminutive gesture, rather than portraying the actual size of 16 inches. The next neighbor announces that he prefers zucchini that are about eight inches. Apparently, these foodies have the discerning palates of the gastronomes who cook up the magazine, “Bon Appetite,” thinks our dishearten cultivator. The fruiter’s mind — yes, zucchini are actually a fruit — starts to race, bordering on the edge of “fruitloopatosis,” explaining that he has a 20 inch specimen and that when you have a zucchini of that size you can stuff it, to which the now impatient neighbor replies, “Exactly.”
The poor gardener skulks away feeling shunned and embarrassed by having stooped so low as to grovel when he was merely trying share the fruits of his labor. He ventures onward to canvas his other neighbors on the politics of zucchini with the same results, receiving nothing but nay votes. Now feeling the effects of ostracism at having violated some sort of implied, botanical trust, he slogs home to face the alien pod invasion, alone.
As he frets and ponders how to rid himself of the invasive hoard, our holder of the horn of plenty is enlightened by a Google query, informing him that zucchini can be shredded in their raw state, bagged and frozen for future use. Of course, that would mean the purchase of another freezer to contain the pulverized hoard, which would counter the notion embracing the cost efficiency of backyard gardening, but what the hay, “Waste not, want not,” right?
The previously overwhelmed gardener begins to voraciously pulverize the alien hoard with reckless, satisfying abandon, through his new Cuisinart food processor, another expenditure, at a cost of two hundred bucks. But what the hay, who’s counting? The new freezer is eventually filled with legions of bagged shredded zucchini to be used in casseroles, bread, spaghetti sauces or as an additive to any crockpot recipe you can cram it in. Or perhaps, you would relish some zucchini ice cream?
At the end of the growing season, your garden might harbor one or two well camouflaged giants, startling you, not unlike, while on safari, you encounter a couple of green algae covered hippos which have meandered up out of the mighty Zambezi, when having cornered you, causes you to wish that you hadn’t left your blunderbuss back at the tent. Easy now, it’s only a couple of overgrown zucchini.
One of these late season, lurking zucchini giants might be inspiration for a “Peanuts” movie sequel titled, “It’s the Great Zucchini, Charlie Brown,” as the script writers try their best to keep the storyline kiddie friendly, leaving out any alien pod, slash, food processor scenes. Good grief!
There is a new woke movement abroad, with its zucchini detesting zealots hoping to generate enough funds to plaster the countryside with placards and highway billboards printed with the group’s motto, “Quash the Squash!” under a depiction of giant green alienlike pod. Don’t these anti-big zucchini bigots even realize that the zucchini is actually a fruit, loaded with vitamins and minerals?
The emotions of zucchini politics often run deep. Bon appetite!
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