Almost Italian

Chances are great that if you call Lagenaria siceraria “cucuzza” or “goo-gootz” (in the clipped speech of immigrants from Campania, Calabria, Sicily, and any other regions of southern Italy), you have intimate acquaintance with the food of Italian-Americans.

On the other hand, if you are third—or fourth—generation Italian-American, you might think these are merely other names for the zucchini we now buy year ’round in American supermarkets. Not so!

The Cordaro Cucuzza Plantation in Ruston, Louisana

Botanically speaking, members of the family Curcubitaceae—melons, cucumbers, pumpkins, gourds, winter and summer squash (including cucuzza)—are actually fruits. But that distinction matters little to those for whom this long, slender, jade-green summer squash packs as much nostalgic power as Mom’s Sunday Gravy or your nonna’s cavatelli. And so with the cucuzza harvest now at its peak, AlmostItalian.com begins the first of our posts devoted to exploring the special significance of cucuzza in the collective memory of Italian-Americans.

Most back-yard gardeners who take the trouble to plant Lagenaria siceraria have never read Marcel Proust. But even if they don’t know that hundreds of pages of 19th-century literature were induced by the flavor of a simple cake dipped in a cup of tea, these gardeners in the old Italian-American neighborhoods know the power of food to trigger memory.

No one would have understood this better than the first hungry immigrants from the Mezzogiorno arriving in the ports of New Orleans, New York, and Providence. Though many of them were illiterate, they would have agreed with another French author, the gastronome Jean Anthèlme Brillat-Savarin, who said “Tell me what you eat, and I’ll tell you who you are.”

More than any other ethnic group during the great age of immigration, Italians used a wide range of food to define their national identity amidst groups of earlier arrivals from Europe and the British Isles. Though other Americans associated Italians primarily with pasta and tomato sauce, Italians grew and prepared a wide variety of produce. Being able to claim any space at all to cultivate for themselves—as little as a windowsill, fire-escape landing, or alley—allowed the immigrants to literally put down roots and express hopes for new lives. A pot of basil or tomatoes, a flimsy chicken-wire trellis or a porch railing supporting spring fava beans followed by a summer squash vine were proclamations of Italian regional origin, proprietorship, and stability.

And especially if those immigrants were Sicilians, the squash of choice were likely to be cucuzze,* any of the so-called snake-gourds– long, thin-skinned cultivars of Lagenaria.

There is a Sicilian proverb, to the effect that one cannot disguise the humble nature of something: “No matter how you cook it, it’s still a cucuzza.” And while it’s certainly true that this mild-tasting squash will never be mistaken for a leg of lamb, white truffles, or a wedge of Parmigiano, the Italian-American reverence of cucuzza is profound.

Cucuzze in suburban New Jersey
Photo courtesy of Christine Ferrante

Today, growing cucuzza, like creating the fanciful breads and feeding the poor during the festa of San Giuseppe, is one of those activities that says an Italian-American is serious about “carrying on the old ways,” even if his forebears had never owned a patch of earth or had been urban refugees from the horrific Messina earthquake that rocked Sicily and Calabria in 1908.

This 2010 obituary of a first-generation American and Florida retiree depicts just such a standard-bearer and upholder of Italian values:

Once in the United States, many Italians looked back through rose-colored glasses and fashioned a culinary culture that had been out of reach for most of them back in their homeland. Previous posts on AlmostItalian.com detail the immigrants’ enjoyment of American meat and dairy products, to say nothing of durum wheat pasta, all relatively cheap and abundant here, but rarely tasted by the poorest immigrants before they had reached America.

Despite the rich foods available, la cucina dei poveri, the cooking born of frugality and dire necessity back in the old country, was the source of some of the most delicious dishes fondly passed down in Italian-American families. Among them is a simple stew of cucuzza and tender tips of the squash vine.

Tenerumi are the edible tendrils of cucuzze
Copyright © 2010, Skip Lombardi

This classic Sicilian summer dish includes the newest delicate leaves and tendrils, tenerumi, of the cucuzza vine, which grows as much as two feet a day if provided with sufficient warmth and moisture. One can imagine that thrifty cooks delighted in a steady supply this free “by-product” of squash plants—fresh, leafy greens that could withstand summer heat.

It is striking that virtually all the Italian-American recipes for this dish include broken spaghetti or linguine (rather than simply suggesting a short pasta shape). Our research supports that this, too, is a nod to “carrying on the old ways,” a custom whose significance is all but forgotten. Back in southern Italy, dry pasta was sold in bulk. Inevitably, small broken bits of various shapes accumulated at the bottom of grocers’ bins and barrels. These were sold cheaply as pasta for soup and called munnezzaglia, which Italian culinary authority Faith Willinger translates from Neapolitan speech as “all garbage.”

Minestra di Cucuzza e Tenerumi

Far greater than the sum of its parts, this uncomplicated and refreshing dish comes together very quickly.

Minestra di Cucuzza e Tenerumi
Copyright © 2010, Skip Lombardi

Ingredients:

4 oz. pasta corta (tubettini, ditali, or other short, tubular pasta)

3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. peperoncini ( more to taste)
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
2 Tbsp. olive oil

6 Tenerumi, each about 10” long (optional)
20 oz. Cucuzza, 1 small fruit or part of a larger one, peeled with a carrot peeler and cut into 3/4-inch cubes

1 Lb. ripe tomatoes, cored and chopped (or a 14-oz. can of chopped tomatoes, including juice)
8 oz. new red potatoes, previously boiled in their skins, then cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1/2 Cup chopped Italian parsley or 8-10 snipped fresh basil leaves
Salt to taste
Fruity olive oil to finish
4 Tbsp. Freshly grated pecorino, Romano, or other Italian grating cheese (Cacciocavallo would be a Sicilian choice.)

Preparation:

Boil the pasta in salted water for 3-4 minutes; it will be less than al dente.
Drain the pasta and set it aside. Reserve 2-3 cups of the starchy pasta water.

In a large pan at least 2 inches deep, sauté the garlic, peperoncini, and black pepper in olive oil. Add the cubes of cucuzza and sauté on medium heat for 7-10 minutes, or until crisp-tender.

Meanwhile, if you are using them, wash and chop the tenerumi stems and leaves into 1/2 inch pieces. Add the tenerumi and the red-skin potato cubes to the cucuzza. Sauté for 2 minutes or until the greens are wilted. Add the tomatoes and any collected juice. Simmer for 3 minutes and add the undercooked pasta and a few ladlefuls of the pasta cooking-water, depending on how “soupy” you would like your dish.

Gently stir to combine and simmer for a minute or two, then turn off the burner. The pasta will continue to cook in the residual heat. Taste for salt.

Stir in the chopped herbs and ladle the minestra into shallow bowls. Drizzle a bit of olive oil over each serving and sprinkle on just a little grated cheese (Don’t overdo the cheese– the subtle, sweet flavor of the cucuzza should predominate.)

Enjoy hot or lukewarm, accompanied by good bread.

Serves four.

Stay tuned for a series of late-summer posts with recipes that highlight cucuzza and tenerumi, two Italian-American garden gems from the same plant.

If you haven’t grown your own and don’t have Italian grandparents living next door, you can buy both cucuzza and tenerumi online. Order your own supply—wholesale or retail— from www.cucuzzasquash.com.

Chris Cordaro’s cucuzze ready for market

Until autumn frosts hit their vines, Christopher & Violet Cordaro ship (and deliver) their Louisiana cucuzza production coast to coast. With luck, you’ve got till sometime in November, but don’t wait– more recipes are coming in a few days as The Cucuzza Chronicles continue…

*Cucuzze is the proper Italian plural.