When last wrote about zucchini, it was July, and our one and only zucchini was no bigger than my thumb. Tempus fugit. We’ve brought the last zucchini up from the garden to join its siblings in a crowded refrigerator. ‘ve already made a double batch of zucchini bread, and now ‘ll make another.

‘ve frozen sliced zucchini, wondering as did so if a little smile of warmth-remembered will light my face when use the last of it in February. Tasty renditions of zucchini have figured in every other dinner menu here since late August. (t is true that a recent house guest, asked if steamed zucchini with sour cream, minced onion, and dill – a personal favorite – would appeal, declared, “Gosh, we don’t need another thing.”)

After Rita Colby showed me two recipes for chocolate zucchini cake that her niece got off the nternet, went online. Just one of dozens of Google results got me more than 200 recipes that utilize zucchini. There were, to be sure, redundancies – many different zucchini bread recipes with and without pineapple, orange, apple or lemon.

Fritatas, fritters, fruit

Did you know that you can incorporate zucchini into roast suckling pig, frittatas, fritters, fruit bars or put fish fillets in zucchini “nests” to bake? Not surprisingly, a great many of the 200 recipes were designated “talian” since zucchini (meaning small gourd in talian) is also known as talian squash.

But the list is multicultural. There are zucchini favorites from all over: in Africa, couscous with chicken in a stew or in srael, zucchini topped with chopped green or red pepper and tomato, the lot sauted in olive oil. n Turkey, you can order zucchini pancakes or, in the Caribbean, flying fish pie, with zucchini.

But there are no Central or South American recipes for this member of the cucumber family on the Web site. Odd because zucchini originated in and was discovered by the explorers who landed in South and Central America in the late-15th and early-16th centuries.

Archaeologists have traced zucchini in the Southern Hemisphere back to 7,000 B.C.

When you think of the enormous squash our northern soil produces, it’s not hard to imagine giant zukes growing in a clearing in the rain forest. So Amerigo Vespucci, Christopher Columbus or Hernando Cortez – one of those conquistadors – introduced zucchini to Europe.

Zeroing in on a festival

There it was first prized for its blossoms – still is. But by-and-by, talian and French cooks discovered the delights of the fruit itself. Zucchini probably came to North America from South and Central America with some of those early explorers, but expect arriving Europeans also brought along zucchini seeds to the New World.

Today, zucchini, the little gourd, thrives here in northern Oxford County. began thinking. We need a food festival here in the River Valley. Boston and Bethel have their chowder fests, and the lobster festival in Rockland attracts thousands.

Why not, right here multicultural River Valley, have a multicultural zucchini festival and cook-off? Maybe even a parade with zucchini theme floats – zucchini-shaped balloons and clowns tossing zucchini fruit bars to spectators.

And a cookbook …

did not call Growth Council head Rosie Bradley or River Valley Chamber Administrator Rebecca Rotford with my visionary idea. figured both were out straight with the weekend’s bigger and better than ever River Valley Expo. ‘ll let the idea rest till spring when next we plant our zucchini.

• n last week’s column about the Rumford High School Class of 1980’s reunion, mistakenly — and in several places – referred to the Class of ’85. Sorry those mistakes slipped by, but did enjoy hearing from a lot of members, friends and family of the Class of 1980.

Linda Farr Macgregor and her husband live in Rumford. She is a community volunteer and author of Rumford Stories. She can be reached at [email protected]