But They Keep Trying 

    In my previous blog, I addressed my aversion to eating members of the Cucurbitaceae family, namely squash, pumpkin, or zucchini. During my lifetime, I’ve had countless cooks take up my aversion as a personal challenge to their cooking ability. Why my aversion should bother them so much I can’t explain, but it happens. One of these was my own mother. 
    These cooks go to great lengths to explain that how they fix one of the gourds will make my mouth water in anticipation, and instantly cure me of my aversion. These conversations will go something like this: “Eldon, first I take the zucchini and slice it real thin. Then I marinate it overnight in bourbon/goat’s milk/spring water from West Virginia,” or anything else each cook can think up that makes her dish unique. 
    Then she’ll continue. “Now comes the good part. I brush melted butter on both sides of the slice of zucchini, put enough salt and pepper on it to put your taste buds into shock, then dip it in bread crumbs from the crust of a loaf of Fisherman’s Wharf Sourdough bread, after which I deep fry this abused piece of zucchini in boiling specially distilled safflower oil until it is crispy. If you eat it hot, you’ll never even know it’s a piece of zucchini.” Then this cook will look at me like I’m supposed to fall over in a swoon at the thought of eating this gourmet treat. Then I say, “But Ma’am, you lost me there when you said, “you’ll never even know it’s a piece of zucchini.” 
    Another gamut is for one of these gourd pushers to say, “Eldon, I’ve made this pie out an unsuspecting pumpkin. First, I made this delicious pastry crust. It’s so light I had to use weights to hold it in the pie plate until I could pour in the pumpkin mixture, which is made up of boiled pumpkin, enough sugar to energize a room full of third graders, plus some spices, (and here they will list stuff I never heard of or really care about) and it hardly tastes like pumpkin at all.” 
    My first question is, if pumpkin is so great why go to such lengths to disguise it?
    Another question: if you don’t want it to taste like pumpkin why not just make a pecan pie to start with? 
    But pumpkin pie has another drawback and that is the texture. Now if I could just eat the crust, with plenty of butter on it, and maybe some jam, I’d be a happy camper, but that filling has the texture of---well---ah, it’s almost as bad as pudding. Ack! AND IT STILL TASTES LIKE PUMPKIN! 
    As these cooks regale me with their conversion efforts, in my mind I’m saying, anything that has be to that well disguised to make it palatable has a problem to begin with.