Gardens
Coming FridayIn YourLI Home,GardenDetectiveJessicaDamianoshowshow togardenfor the birds.
Write to Irene Virag at1019 Fort Salonga Rd.,Suite 10, #302, Northport,NY 11768 or [email protected] her blog atwww.irenevirag.com.
T his is a story about a manand a vegetable. The manis my husband, Harvey
Aronson, but you can call himMr. Virag because he says every-body else does. The vegetable isa cucuzz, which means “superlong squash.” Or you can add an“a” and call it cucuzza.
That’s what the late, greatLouis Prima did. He evenwrote a song about it. Here aresome lyrics:
“Cucuzza grows in ItalyThey love it on the farmIt’s something like zucchiniFlavored with Italian charmI call my girl Cucuzza ’cause
she’s sweet as she can beShe loves to hear me say,
‘Cucuzza, please babotcha me’ ”
Cucuzz, cucuzza — by anyname this vegetable of Medi-terranean origin evokes pas-sion. Even Rampicante Zuc-chetta and Tromboncino, asit is also known, sound ro-mantic. If you want to get toits roots, cucuzz belongs tothe genus Cucurbita and itsspecies is moschata, or win-ter squash, although it’s fre-quently listed as C. pepo orsummer squash. This is be-cause it tastes best duringthe warm months, when it’sstill relatively small — mea-suring a mere eight to 18inches long.
My husband prefers to call itcucuzz — pronounced ku-koozwith the accent on the lastsyllable. As names go, it con-veys a sense of zest and virilityfitting for a plant that — interms of both fruit and vines— grows like wild.
Cucuzz can be big — reallybig. When we first planted it inour garden, we weren’t surewhat it was other than some
kind of squash. We tried twoplants — one on either side of anarbor, and it turned into a caseof vines gone wild. If we hadn’ttrimmed them back, they wouldhave taken over the arbor, thefence, and maybe even theworld. There are people whodon’t understand its virtues.Like a gardener friend of minewho sneers and calls it kudzu.
The fruit starts with lovelyyellow blossoms, and then,partially hidden by the foliage,the squashes sort of sneak upon you. I’ve read that cucuzzcan grow two feet per day, andI’m ready to believe it. All of asudden, these big green vegeta-bles are in your face. Fouryears ago, Mr. Virag grew onethat topped three feet and tookit to the office to show hiscolleagues. “It’s a cucuzz,” myhusband said. “I grew it my-self.” People seemed im-pressed — this is a countrywhere really big matters. Heeven pushed me to run a photoof it in the paper.
This summer we kept thevines well in bounds, but sudden-ly the lime-green giants ap-peared and two of them dangledfrom the arbor and hit unwaryvisitors in the head as theyentered the garden. A windyrainstorm destroyed one, butthe other survived. My husbandclearly didn’t want to cut itdown, but a few days ago it fellof its own volition.
He was all smiles as hebrought it into the house, andfor a fearful minute I thought hewas going to beat his chest likeTarzan and hurt himself. In-stead, he measured the almoststraight squash. It toppedfour feet. And this time,he didn’t just want aphoto of the cucuzz alone.“Take my picture with it,”he said. Outside, he tried avariety of poses, some ofwhich I don’t see fit tomention.
In the one I like best, heheld the cucuzz as if itwere a baseball bat. Thiswas very revealing. Mr.Virag’s affection for cu-cuzz stems, in part, fromits Italian heritage. Heconnects it with JoeDiMaggio, who was oneof his boyhood heroes —the others were Joe Louisand Abraham Lincoln.Many of the cucuzzeswe’ve grown curve andwind up looking likemusical instruments (ergothe name Tromboncino).
Others are nearly straight andlook like baseball bats. He seemsto favor the latter. Even after Itook the photos, he kept swing-ing the cucuzz.
I could have thrown him a BigBoy tomato to hit and beanedhim in the process, but instead Ismiled. And the truth is that I,too, have grown into a cucuzz
fan. We planted the first ones asa spur-of-the-moment replace-ment for some climbing rosesthat petered out on the arbor.We kept on planting them, andsoon I realized that I couldn’tlive without them. We harvestsome when they’re small and attheir most flavorful, but I enjoythe way they look when they’ve
got some stature andshine in the sunlight.Besides, even when thefruit is giant-size, I com-bine chunks of the purewhite flesh with chickenin a tasty stew.
You can steam, broil,stuff, stew and grill cu-cuzz. What’s good toknow is that it containsvitamins A and C and butno fat or cholesterol. Ahalf-cup serving accountsfor only 20 calories. And,as my friend Giro DiLilloof Prianti Farms in DixHills, where I find mycucuzz seedlings, oncetold me, “My grandfatherused to fry the blossoms.He’d say to my grand-mother, ‘Mama, can youfry these up for me?’ ”
My experience hasbeen the squash of
squashes resists insects anddisease. I plant them in well-prepared and enriched beds,and the cucuzz does the rest.
Oh yes, cucuzz makes awonderful conversation pieceinside the garden as well asoutside. We kept a baseball-batbeauty in our potting room formonths before it started to,let’s say, deteriorate. It comple-mented the wallpaper.
My proud husband told visi-tors the same thing he told themthis season when they ran intothe dangling giants. “It’s calledcucuzz. I grew it myself.”
Or as Louis Prima so elo-quently put it:
“My CucuzzaCucuzza bellaShe’s my pizza pie with lotsa
mozzarella. . . .I dream of my CucuzzaShe’s the only dish for me.”
IRENEVIRAG
‘Mr. Virag’is cuckoofor cucuzz
PHOTOS BY IRENE VIRAG
Harvey Aronson, aka “Mr. Virag,” goes to bat for cucuzz, an unusal squash he’s proud to grow.
Irene, Irene, quite serene, how does yourcucuzz grow? Vine and dandy, thanks.
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