Marrows and zucchini
MARROWS AND ZUCCHINI
- Marrow - Cucurbita pepo L. var. giraumonas
- Cucurbitaceae family
Marrow - is a variety of vegetable pumpkin. South and Central America is a motherland of marrows. We have two types of marrows such as branching and non-branching. The first type forms sprouts with short branches, the second one has no branches. It is short-season crop, you can harvest fruits in 3-10 days after setting. Marrows have less saccharose than pumpkin but more mineral salt and vitamin C. Fruits contain 4-8 % of dry basis, 3% of saccharose , 4-4,5% of anitrogenous agents, about 1% of protein, 2% of pectin, 0,1 % of fats, 0,9 % of cellulose. Young marrows have a lot of starch. Marrows are tasty both boiled or fried. In domestic cooking it is used for soup, salads, borsch preparation and for co conserving.
- Zucchini Cucurbita pepo L. var. giraumonas
- Cucurbitaceae family
Zucchini - is a longish marrow with a tender skin yellow, green or white colour. Zucchini came from Mexico and West India; but to Europe it came through Italy and became very popular as much as marrows. “Zucchini” is a plural form of Italian word “zucchino”. As cucumber and marrow it belongs to Cucurbitaceae family, and can be as big as pumpkin. In our regions zucchini should be harvested from July to October and has many fruits. Generally zucchini is grown in open ground but thanks to green-houses and supermarkets we can see it almost all year. Note: people call marrow by word “zucchini” in many European languages no mater what colour or size it is. External skin can be light-green or yellow depending on variety, they also can be speckled or striped. According to European Norm zucchini should be harvested when they are in the length about 20 cm, they should be slim as cucumber. They also can look as a small pumpkin. There is one rule for zucchini: bigger fruit – worse taste. It has white firm seeds inside that are on the white or silicious flesh. Zucchini has no jelly-like flesh as for example cucumber has, because zucchini contains less liquid. This vegetable is low-calorie and eupeptic. Zucchini has a little nutty flavor and goes with other vegetables. It is possible to consume all fruit. Even flowers can be used for cooking for example as stuffing or as decor. Skin is very thin so there is no need for peeling, moreover zucchini can be consumed fresh. There are many variants how to use zucchini; fresh, stuffing, fried, baked this vegetable is taste both as cold or hot one. Almost in all countries people use zucchini for cooking.
