Thoughts from a village horticultural show

[Primrose]

We attended a nearby village horticultural show today, which has prompted a few thoughts:

1. I always thought a true marrow had green skin with cream stripes but I noticed several marrows being shown had plain dark green skins. Are these also true marrows of a different variety, or overgrown courgettes. Can a really huge courgette be classified as a marrow?

2. I loved the category in the Culinary section for "The most disastrous effort". Several brave souls had exhibited their burnt pies or collapsed cakes but this is the first time I've ever seen this as a category on its own. Is it a regular feature of fruit and veg shows?

3. The local Rotary Club were having a stand there showcasing their efforts to plant a Community Orchard on a patch of spare village land, planting apples, pears, plums, cherries, quinches and medlars, so that in years to come, the community can undertake collective picking and preserving for local fund raising efforts, and school children can have picnics there and learn about fruit growing. What a lovely idea! Sounds like a more organised version of guerilla gardening.

[Monika]

On number 1: yes, there are marrows which are completely green. I can't think of the name of the long variety at the moment but Eight Ball, a round one, is certainly completely dark green.

On number 2: we have a "disaster class" in the vegetable section where I won first prize this year with a beautifully cork-screwed runner bean. But, I must admit I have never seen a similar class in the culinary section.

[Compo]

Our village show best Marrow is often a big courgette but not sure if it is within RHS rules or Similar

CoMpO

[alan refail]

Hi Primrose

The concept "true marrow" can only exist in the minds and rulebooks of vegetable judges!

Marrows are large courgettes - courgettes are small marrows, irrespective of varieties and colours. And all are Cucurbita pepo.

Most of the confusion comes from the curious English term "vegetable marrow" and the borrowing of the French word "courgette", or, if you're American, "zucchino".

In French "courge" is a fully-grown squash (for want of a better word), while "courgette" with the diminutive -ette is a small, immature one.

In Italian "zucca" has the diminutive form "zucchino" or "zucchina". Hence to find American recipes you need to look for "zucchini" or "zucchine".

[Nature's Babe]

I have a big golden marrow now having grown it for courgette seeds.

[Johnboy]

Well as Alan has said that both Marrow and Courgette share the same Latin Name there can be no argument. It is the distinguishing features that count and this can only be varietal. If a plant produces masses of small fruit it is called a Courgette but it only becomes so when you pick it in the small state and as NB has said she has a very large golden Courgette, but by now to my way of thinking it has become a Marrow, to produce seed for next year from which she will grow and pick the fruit in the small stage. It is not possible to collect seed from a courgette because they have not formed at that time in it's short life.
So there a varieties of the Marrow which perform differently but never the less are still Marrows.
How about that for a slice of Double Dutch!
JB.

[Primrose]

Well, will some innovative person on here suggest to me how I can get my OH to eat marrow (which he hates) when he'll happily eat courgettes every day if they're the same plant I thought it was we women who were supposed to be the illogical sex?

[Arnie]

Hi Primrose

Just tell him it's a large Courgette


Regards

Kevin

[Johnboy]

Hi Primrose,
You are! What it actually means that in all those years married you have failed to work out the logic of your OH.
JB.

[Tony Hague]

Well, will some innovative person on here suggest to me how I can get my OH to eat marrow (which he hates) when he'll happily eat courgettes every day if they're the same plant I thought it was we women who were supposed to be the illogical sex?

IMHO, your OH is quite within the bounds of logic. Because it is from the same plant is only part of the story; surely how it has developed, and how it is cooked matters too ? Should you automatically like green peppers because you like red ones ? Or green tomato chutney because you like passata ?

Corgettes, like many fruiting bodies, swell in large part by filling out with water, so the texture changes a lot. If marrows are cooked by stuffing them with sausage meat as is traditional, I agree that the result is quite disgusting - steamed meat in watery slime. On the other hand, overgrown corgettes, especially the golden ball type, sliced in half along the length, deseeded, brushed with chilli oil and roasted then filled with chilli, topped with cheese and baked are a much nicer proposition.

[Elle's Garden]

Tony, that sounds lovely - I think I may try that this week.