The Cucuzza Chronicles
September 4th, 2010Chances 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, many of them were illiterate. Nonetheless, 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 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:
Frank had many passions in life. First and foremost was his family… He loved to cook and bake, creating all the Italian traditional favorites at Christmas and Easter. Music and dancing were a big part of his life. Gardening was one of his favorite hobbies, including growing his own cucuzza squash.
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 (Aged caciocavallo might be a Sicilian choice.)
–Variations of this dish appear throughout Sicily and in the kitchens of Sicilian immigrants. Potatoes seem to be an American addition.
–Many cooks simply add the dry pasta and 1-2 cups of water to the pan along with the cucuzza and tomatoes, resulting in a dish with less-defined textures. We prefer a little crispness to our cucuzza and are sticklers for pasta al dente, hence the sequence we present here.
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 another recipe, one that showcases both 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, time enough to read the second half of our post and try another recipe. Our story continues with Cucuzza Chronicles, Part II: Tenerumi.
*Cucuzze is the proper Italian plural.
September 4th, 2010 at 10:17 am
THANKS! for the wonderful recipe! Can’t wait to cook with the tendrils – what a great idea!!
September 7th, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Enjoyed the article on googootz. I think you’ve successfully captured the essence of obscure culinary parochialism in an enchanting, anachronistic sort of way! I’d be curious to hear of some of your other readers’ reactions.
September 9th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
My first memory of Cucuzza was in the late 1950′s. Our landlady, Mrs Cipolla had an amazing garden in the back yard of our East Orange, NJ home. These squashes excited our imagination – we were small children, they were huge, almost as long as we were tall. I moved away from NJ and that vibrant Italian community only to wonder what ever happened to… and I tried to recapture so many of the things that were lost. I remembered the Cucuzze – at first I thought they might be zucchini, but it was clear to me they were not.
One summer about 15 years ago, I found someone selling seeds for these things. the seeds looked prehistoric, like something that might hatch out and become a huge insect, not a plant! But I planted them and before I knew it, I had a vine that threatened to swallow up everything else in my yard. It practically topped my tree. the tree still doesn’t grow upwards very well, so many years later. Eventually it produced some great looking squash, I don’t know if I can show picture here; but here is the URL.. That’s a BIG cat in the photo
http://mimitabby.com/cats/grizsquash.jpg
I enjoyed your blogpost very much.
September 12th, 2010 at 9:08 am
Indeed, the ‘cucuzza’ is an amazing vegetable. I have a friend who grows them as long as those on the Cordaro plantation. His difference is that he cradles them longitudinally on a bed of straw and love.
One last thing: an uneaten cucuzza left to harden makes a great baseball bat.
September 12th, 2010 at 10:51 am
…or vuvuzela!
Skip
September 13th, 2010 at 10:08 am
For those who don`t know what that is: it`s a musical horn, not too likeable.
May 21st, 2011 at 1:58 pm
My grandparents were born in the 1800′s in Piana dei Greci(now called Piana degli Albanesi) Provincia di Palermo, Sicily.When I was back in Piana visiting 3 years ago the cucuzza seller had his truck outside church after 7 am mass doing a brisk business. I had my picture made with the priest(my very distant cousin) selecting cucuzza. Some were taller than I was. The vendor was also selling the vines.
I have a theory about the name cucuzza. Since some Sicilians say guguzza and some say cucuzza that says to me that that the squash is of Arabic or even farther eastern origins….
Yesterday I bought a cucuzza at the Chinese supermarket in Richmond VA. I used my cousin fron Piana’s recipe that she gave me 3 years ago. It is almost identical to the Cordaro’s recipe.There is nothing else like the delicious taste of cucuzza.
May 21st, 2011 at 3:33 pm
“Cucuzza” is most probably derived from the Latin “cucutia.” However, you are right that many words that occur in both Italian and Arabic have pronunciations that vary from region to region. (One of us is an Arabic speaker, and we are both fascinated by etymologies.)
In both Italian and Arabic, the sounds of hard C (or K), hard G, and Q are often interchangeable. And when transliterated from spoken speech and the Arabic alphabet, these give rise to myriad spellings.
Thank you so much for your interest. We’d like to know more about your family and whether any of them were speakers of Albanian or Greko (the Italianized Greek we recently discussed in our AlmostItalian.com post on Eggs in Purgatory.
July 12th, 2011 at 9:48 am
My parents are from the Palermo area of Sicily. We always had these growing in our garden. Now I grow cucuzza on my property. My father gave me two different varities. One is shaped like a baseball bat larger on the bottome and gets thinner toward the top, the other is longer and thinner(kinda like . This year I am crossbreeding them by hand pollination. This help fruit production too.
Tenerumi are picked only after a gourd begins to form. I was taught that you pick it when there are more than three leaves and pick only up to the set prior to the gourd. This is a way of prunning the plant so the energy is sent to the fruit and as a way of not wasting what you grow. The last three leaves are the most tender. When tenerumi and cucuzza is served you know it is summer in my house. Tons of ways to cook it!!!!!!!
July 12th, 2011 at 10:13 am
Ciao, Antonio!
Wonderful to have your hands-on advice for those who wish to “grow their own.” If anyone wants the experience of cultivating the squash (and “experience” IS the operative word here: the vines can grow 12″ a day!), Chris & Violet Cordaro sell cucuzza seeds. Even in New England, it’s not too late to plant some. (see their Website link in the article.)
August 14th, 2011 at 9:08 pm
Loved the article. My sister and I have been searching for a cucuzza recipe for years. My Nonna from Sicily used to make candied cucuzza. Then she made a filled cookie (or pastry) which contained the cucuzza, chocolate, cinnamon & nuts. Her recipe disappeared after she passed away and we have not been able to find a recipe anywhere……please help so that our parents can enjoy these cookies again! Thank you!
August 23rd, 2011 at 12:25 pm
A few days ago, one of my sons, gave me a couple of cucuzzas he grew from seeds which his next door neighbor gave him. These seeds came from Italy. Cooked them in olive oil with onion, garlic and some San Marzano tomatoes. I added broken capelini pasta to the soup. So very good. Having the rest of it for lunch today.
Many years ago, my late husband planted cucuzza seeds beneath a very tall pine tree. The plant flourished very well, so much so that we had to improvise a way to retrieve the cucuzze. My husband climbed the pine tree carrying his fishing pole and hooked the fruit with the pole and lowered it down to the ground. That was a very good catch. Also, I remember eating tenerumi as a child.
Sometimes my local supermarket has cucuzze from Ruston
but I have never seen tenerumi.
Thanks for this article. Very enjoyable.
August 23rd, 2011 at 4:07 pm
Ciao, Josephine,
We love your tale! It beats most fish stories!
The Cordaros who produce all those cucuzze in Ruston, LA will be pleased to know your local market stocks their lovingly-grown produce.
Tenerumi, with all their curly little tendrils, are very delicate and have to be chilled and carefully wrapped for shipping. That gets rather expensive– for both the Cordaros as well as their customers. But the Cordaros will ship tenerumi– just call them for a quote on the cost, which will be high. Imagine– Sicilians once considered tenerumi the fare of dire poverty!
To satisfy any tenerumi cravings, it may be more practical to simply snip the last 8-12 inches of any growing curcurbit ( that’s any cucumber, squash, or melon vine) and treat it like a cucuzza tip.
Holly
September 8th, 2011 at 10:55 am
I grew up living upstairs from my Sicilian grandparents in Brooklyn NY.If a neighbor shared a ‘googootza’ from their garden with us, it was an event and a gastronomic treat! Now that I have my own vegetable garden in Connecticut, I decided to grow the beloved cucuzza myself! Just peeling it and remembering the smell brought back all the memories to me. I cook it with sauteed onion and garlic in olive oil, plum tomatoes from my garden and fresh picked tenerumi with spagettini broken into small pieces – I top it with crumbled Locatelli Romano or Reggiano (can’t find cacciocovallo cheese here)!! My four children love it! We can’t get enough of it and I think of my grandparents and my wonderful neighbors from my childhood in Brooklyn, NY. They would be so proud and happy!
If i have leftover (which is typical since the cucuzza is so large), I add fresh tenenrumi to the leftovers to give it a fresh, healthy lift.
Will grow it again next summer for sure!!
Ciao,
Marie
September 8th, 2011 at 2:58 pm
We’re just so happy to hear these accounts from all of you who “grow your own.” If any of you can tell us how your cucuzze and their vines fared during the latest storms– Irene, Katia, Lee– we gardeners would love to know.
Send photos!
Cheers, Skip & Holly
September 9th, 2011 at 3:16 pm
Was interesting to see the trellis’ that the vines are growing on collapse when the wind from Irene intensified on the Sunday of the storm. Was quite dramatic. It was a family effort to ‘push’ the vines upright again and we came up with a make-shift support. The vines took a beating but with pruning and some sun, happy to report that I have harvested several cucuzze and the vines are bright green. Lots of tenerumi to add to the cucuzza yesterday!
Delicious!
September 11th, 2011 at 9:31 pm
We’d like all our readers to know that the Cordaro plantation’s August cucuzza crop (pictured here above) took a hard hit with the record-breaking drought that has been in the news this summer (temperatures up to 109 Fahrenheit).
However, cucuzze, like the hard-working Italian immigrants who first brought them here, are extraordinarily resilient. Violet Cordaro reports are that their autumn crop is looking good…
Chris Cordaro just drove 4,160 pounds of cucuzze from the Cordaro farm in Ruston, Louisiana, to Long Island, NY on 06 Sept 2011. So if prices for your favorite squash are a little higher this season, now you know why!
If your local shops don’t have cucuzze, call the Cordaros! They will ship directly to you.
September 20th, 2011 at 7:40 am
Great memories of my Grandfather who immigrated from Gibbilina, Sicily. He always had a garden and always grew cucuzza. My father carried on the tradition in Texas and ours grew up into the power lines. Now I carry on the tradition too.