Adorable Zucchini: More Magic Than the Pumpkin

During their prime season, zucchini seem to spring up overnight. They grow with such abandon that on a dewy morning one might well scream, Heaven's to Betsy, what am I supposed to do with them? Pick them, my dear, at once. And enjoy them. Elizabeth David, the celebrated British gastronomic writer, championed the cause of baby zucchini so forcefully that growers actually bowed to her wishes. Her influence was equally felt by the public. In the Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson wrote that zucchini only became popular in England after Elizabeth David in the 1950s and l960s had introduced them to readers of her books.