If you grow it, they will eat it. Maybe
In May Henry and I browsed the farmers market eyeing seedlings for our small, raised plot. “Shocked” accurately describes my reaction when Henry picked up a plastic cup labeled Eight Ball Zucchini.
“I'll try it Mom, I promise,” he said with an eagerness that had me beaming.
Until that morning I'd never heard of Eight Ball Zucchini. Zucchini is a zucchini is a zucchini. Right?
Turns out there are dozens of varieties of this soft-skinned squash with other fun names like Bush Baby and Spineless Perfection. They range in color from deep emerald to camouflage to golden. Some are long and smooth; others can be oblong and ribbed.
The Eight Ball plant produced shorter tendrils yet the same familiar golden blossoms and gargantuan leaves. We expected the vine to produce more ball-shaped fruit (yep, biologically speaking squash is a fruit), yet what grew in our garden resembled a short-necked butternut squash rather than a rounder acorn-shaped squash. And, they grew much larger than a billiard ball. So I scrapped my original plan to scoop and stuff them like a pepper or tomato (I had farro and feta in mind) and instead sliced them into lateral planks. A light brushing of lemon-infused olive oil and a sprinkle of dried oregano and they hit the grill.
Good gosh, they was delicious. Had ciabatta rolls, arugula and proscuitto been on hand, I would have made a lovely summer sandwich. As an accompaniment to marinated chicken, they were a winner.
Henry, however, turned up his nose at the texture. He didn't like how the flesh got all mushy.
I resisted his suggestion to deep fry it (he's in a phase where he'll try anything deep-fried), though no doubt shoe string-sized pieces tossed in tempura batter and fried until crisp would have been appealing. I was determined to find a non-fried, non-breaded way for him to like zucchini.
Enter, the Vegetti.
This hand-powered contraption literally turns zucchini and similar-sized vegetables into long, spaghetti-like strands (hence the “etti” in the name). The generic term is “spiralizer” and they come in a variety of models and price ranges.
The cherry tomato plant won our plot's Over-Achiever Award so I turned to it and the nearby basil plant to round out this garden-fresh meal.
Henry says: It seemed like a good idea to grow zucchini in our garden and it was fun to be part of picking out what we were going to put in the ground. Our garden isn't very big and I was surprised by how big the tiny seedling got, especially the leaves. One day I looked under the leaves and there was this big squash. It was about the size of a small pumpkin.
I didn't like zucchini the first time I tried it. The color wasn't very nice and the texture was worse.
But the pasta my mom made was better. It still wouldn't be my first choice to eat for dinner, but it was surprisingly good. We still can't get my pop to try it. And he thinks I'm the picky eater.
• Deborah Pankey, former food editor at the Daily Herald, is the mother of two boys. Her youngest, Henry, is a seventh-grader who is slowly coming out of his picky eater phase.