164. Zucchini

So, this morning I’m sitting at my table just after Thanksgiving. It is snowing lightly and looking a little more like Christmas than Thanksgiving. Nevertheless, I’ve been going through my list of gratitude and I hit upon summer squash, especially zucchini. I haven’t picked any from my garden for six weeks and I had enough at that point that I certainly don’t want to buy any from the store because it’s the season of pumpkin and winter squash. But the spiciness of a nice zucchini bread seems like something for autumn or winter and because we had so much of the summer squash in August and September I have plenty in the freezer for that. While I may not be grilling zucchini at this time of year, I have plenty of zucchini relish to put on my hot dogs or hamburgers that I can still grill on the patio even when it is snowing.

We live in an era where you can buy food from anywhere in the world, so if you want watermelon in November you can have watermelon from South America in Idaho in November. But for the most part I’m a traditionalist. If I’m going to have zucchini at this time of year it’s going to be preserved from summer. That, of course, means I’m going to be eating zucchini bread and zucchini relish at this time of year. I like that. I think that’s the traditional idea of Thanksgiving: gratitude for the harvest that will allow you to survive another winter and early spring.

This year, because my freezer is full of frozen summer squash and my cupboard is full of preserved summer squash I have one more thing from the harvest for which to give thanks. And even in other years when I might not have so much summer squash—that little squash that Americans and Italians call zucchini while the French and British call them courgettes—I am thankful for it. I love that little saying that if you don’t have zucchini you don’t have friends. I’m thankful that I have both.