[Sca-cooks] Spanish Gourds, was Spanish Cheese?

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

On Sat, 10 Aug 2002, at 20:01:17, Sue Clemenger <mooncat at in-tch.com> wrote:
>Can't help ya on the cheeses (I'm completely ignorant about the many
>finer points of cheese, among *many* other things!),
>But I'z wunderin'....Whatcha gonna use for the "gourds?"

If my local easy-to-get-to market doesn't have young long green
gourds at a reasonable price, i'm going to use zucchini.

>I'm in the middle of redacting recipes for an Andalusian feast in
>October (unusual for me, too...I just generally use someone else's
>recipes--redacting isn't exactly my forte <g>).  One of the dishes will
>be chicken cooked with sour grape juice, gourd, and either several
>spices or sour apples (depends on which recipe I go with).  I'm at a
>complete loss as to which of our readily-available squishes will be the
>best substitute for edible gourds, which we *can't* get here.
>
>I tried my first recipe (chicken, apples, verjuice, a little sugar, and
>the "gourd) last week, using butternut squash for the gourd--it was
>available, gourd-shaped <g>, and had a pretty tough skin.  Came out
>pretty tasty, and working with verjuice is fun!, but I have *no klew* as
>to how close the butternut would come in taste, texture, color, etc. to
>what someone in Andalusia would have been using....

Butternut squash is very very very (very very very) very very very
far from white flowered gourd. Not only is it New World (which
zucchini is, too), but its flesh is both orange and hard and has a
strong flavor, which is not true of the flesh of either white
flowered gourd or zucchini.

>I did figure that zucchini probably wouldn't work--I'd expect they'd
>fall apart pretty fast, and the recipes do specify cooking the chicken
>_with_ the gourd.

I have cooked and eaten Asian gourds that are related to the old
European white flowered gourds. They're long - generally a bit longer
than zucchini, with a smooth, evenly colored, and somewhat tough
medium-green skin. Some have ridges running their length. The flesh
is almost white and a little spongy, rather like zucchini, although,
if i recall correctly, not as moist as zucchini. The flavor is mild,
like young zucchini. They can be found in East and Southeast Asian
markets. Zucchini is, in my opinion, a reasonable substitute.

I've also made the Andalusian "chicken or partridge with quince or
apple" dish that was quite good. The fruit cooks down, and while
there are still some lumps, mostly it thickens and flavors the sauce,
which is what i'd expect the gourd to do.

Anahita