[Sca-cooks] Cocuzze in the Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi

[jimandandi at cox.net]

We were discussing pumpkins and other new world cucurbits just a week or so
ago. The Trimaris Cooks Guild is having a potluck based on a specific
luncheon menu out of Scappi, and I am looking for a couple extra vegetable
dishes to add, and lo and behold there are three dishes that call for
"pumpkin" in the English translation (V.106 "to prepare a tourte of domestic
pumpkin", V.107 "to prepare a pumpkin and onion tourte" and V.108 "to
prepare a pumpkin tourte without a shell") so I looked at the index in the
back, which includes the original Italian titles of the dishes and all are
"cocuzze". Even though Scully chose to translate the word cocuzze as
"pumpkin", the instructions clearly are referring to lagenaria gourds. They
describe scraping then boiling the vegetable, then squeezing out the
moisture and then grinding it up in a mortar. That is clearly not a pumpkin,
pumpkin disintegrates when boiled. In the first recipe, the Italian is
"cocuzze nostrali", which is translated by Terence Scully as "domestic
pumpkin" but could also be "local gourd", as "nostrali" usually means
"local". I even image-googled "cocuzze" and the second result is a Lagenaria
gourd!
(https://www.lastampa.it/2015/06/26/societa/cocuzza-parente-sconosciuta-dell
a-zucchina-XzsUo2lOjVLR6ut4zTLPXM/pagina.html) According to the article,
it's still eaten in southern Italy. I think Terence Scully was wrong to
translate this as "pumpkin". What do you think?

 

Madhavi

Trimaris