To squash or not to squash

I don’t care for squash. It wasn’t something I grew up eating, so I never developed a taste for it. Pumpkin, hubbard, acorn, butternut … any and all of it is just plain yucky to me. I find the consistency slimy and the taste just awful.

Pumpkin is among the worst, flavor-wise. Ironically I love growing pumpkins simply because they’re so beautiful. However unless I’m growing them for chicken feed, I’ve stopped wasting the garden space. Even sweetened versions such as pumpkin pie doesn’t do it for me.

The only squash I like is spaghetti squash, in large part because the taste is neutral and the texture isn’t slimy. Older Daughter has been making some wonderful spaghetti squash meals, and it’s something I intend to grow in the garden this summer.

Even the humble zucchini is something I dislike. Older Daughter incorporates zucchini into meals quite often, and just as often I find myself picking it out because I simply couldn’t palate it.

And then … Older Daughter did something magical with zucchini. She grated it.

Yes, she started grating zucchini and adding the grated mix to rice dishes as a low-cal bulking agent. And oh my, in this form I absolutely love it.

Why? I don’t know. The flavor is mild, and when it’s grated up and mixed with rice, it doesn’t have the sliminess (in my mind) of the sliced or diced stuff. In other words, it’s absolutely illogical that I should like zucchini in one form but not another.

Food tastes are funny things, aren’t they? But there you go.

Fortunately zucchini is famously productive as a garden plant, so we’ll be able to have an abundant supply this summer from one plant.

I guess even this old dog can learn a new trick.