The marrow pictured here, with a pea pod for size comparison, mysteriously appeared on my doorstep while I was away. How lovely is that?
I've blogged in the 'Ten Facts About ...' style before, with the only problem being what to include and what to omit. With marrows, oddly, there is only a limited bank of information to be found, but here's what might be of interest to cooks, horticulturalists, and squash freaks.
1 The marrow is the mature fruit of one of the squash family of plants. In its younger
form it is a courgette or, in the US, zucchini.
2 They're grown from seed.
3 They feature in their own size competitions for UK growers, like pumpkins. The
current world record (as far as I can tell) was set in 2008 with a weight of 113
pounds.
4 Marrows are unusual in that they have about zero calories, fat, protein,
cholesterol, sodium or potassium. So you could eat a whole one and still .....
5 They can be used to make marrow and ginger jam, though I've tried this and the
result just tastes mildly of ginger.
6 It's pointless to freeze them; on thawing they just turn to flavourless mush.
7 Unadorned, they have minimal flavour, but can be good in curry, stew or
gratin. Best known of recipes is marrow stuffed with a savoury mixture and
baked; this works very well and it holds it shape.
8 They're also good cut into chunks, tossed with olive oil, crushed garlic, a pinch
of sugar and some salt and pepper, then roasted at a fairly high temp for about
45 minutes. That's what I'm planning for my special marrow.
9 They are much less commonly grown and sold in the US than the UK.
10 Marrows seem to keep well for ages in a cool environment.
Well I stretched it to ten facts fairly successfully. Maybe I can count this as no. 11:
One year one of my courgettes got a bit above itself and we used it as a baseball bat with a tomato for the ball. I was batting, and enthusiastically hit the tomato. The tomato disintegrated and the overripe end of the courgette flew off straight into one of the panes on our hexagonal sloping greenhouse. Replacing the pane was a challenge. Don't try this at home.
