Dear You,
I am back from Berlin - and have enjoyed my friends and the beautiful big flat, the fine weather and breathed culture in the capital.
The gaps between my visits are still long - sometimes I float in a feeling of unreality: in the kitchen I grab for a pitcher - and it isn't there, it stands on another board (though I tried to make arrangements in both flats as similar as possible) - I feel a bit alien in a place where I live for more than ten years. So reassuring that I still can enter - do you know the weird feeling when you pass a house in a city where you once lived - and now are standing "outdoors", no way to get in?
In the Bavarian village I see the opposite way of life - which also has its charms: families living in houses their ancestors built hundred of years before, never moving, and almost all of them know each other quite well and are often related in a remote way.
Now to the zucchinis above: I planted one on my balcony (escorted by a cherry tomato) - and am happily surprised: too late I had read that you need two of them to get "fruits", but this one seems to "Live Alone And Like It", as Marjory Hillis called her very sweet book.
The zucchino (shouldn't be that the correct term? - but the spellchecker refuses, having no Italian connections) spreads its huge leaves and enjoys parthenogenesis - with convincing results.
Yours Truly
Just go French and call them courgettes!
ReplyDeleteThen, in Germany, the green grocer will look at me and say "It's all double Dutch to me" (or Greek?) - here the courgettes are called "Zucchini", singular &plural :-)
DeleteI will never forget the utterly blank stare of a farmer when in the Seventies I asked for the apple "Golden Delicious" - I pronounced as an Englishman would - hahaha.
To me they have always been courgettes, but when I visited the USA for the first time many years ago I was asked if I wanted some Zucchinis, but at that time I had no idea what they were talking about. As Tom says, take your pick - go with the French or choose the Italian/American version.
ReplyDeleteI have to take the Italian version, Rosemary - but it is the question as with "espresso" - if you order two, the correct Italian expression should be "espressi" - an order which a barista called "elitist bullshit" - and he should know, thus I will shut up and call one zucchino a zucchini, too :-)
DeleteI don't live in a Bavarian village, but in my family we have the same situation. We don't live in the EXACT houses our ancestors built, but we do live in the same city. A couple of weekends ago, my family had a reunion weekend in Ballarat (a rural city), and of the 100 cousins there, I certainly didn't know everyone.
ReplyDeleteIt was great fun :)
Dear Helen, I believe in the fun of meeting so many cousins!
DeleteFamily relations are important, and longing for a home - or the Germany word "Heimat" - is natural.
"I've got no roots and my feet are never on the ground" sings Alice Merton - while an Arabian proverb says: "Home is where my carpet is."
You are very adaptable Britta in where you live. Courgettes look nice when out in flower. I like the flower to look at more than the courgette to eat.
ReplyDeleteDear Rachel, I agree to both points: I am very adaptable, but you made me think - I have to be on the lookout when adaptability starts to become tiresome.
ReplyDeleteAnd I love the deep yellow of the courgette flower - and the whole voluptuousness with which this plant takes it space.
You have a nice little garden there.
ReplyDeleteThe birds visit me often. More flowers than garden produce - but I like it.
DeleteI'm unqualified to say whether zucchino is correct or acceptable for I choose to go by a gender-incorrect moniker in that same language :)
ReplyDeleteHaha, I do that in at the moment crazy, crazy gender-correct Germany too. Ignore it.
DeleteThey butcher words ("der Gast" = the guest - now they write in almost every newspaper "der Gast/*/die Gästin" - every time, and "Gästin" never existed before, and the Apple-corrector corrects it every time - but the triplets (!!!!! not four years old, start to correct me!!!) - honestly: it is an idiotic trend.
I do see why it might be useful to use the female form for vocations - though I could imagine in my youth that I could also become an "Ingenieur" - now: "Ingenieur/*/In" (star for those who are gender-inbetween) - in EVERY sentence...
Love zucchini, and the yellow version called Summer squash here - raw, cooked, baked into breads, muffins etc. - such a versatile veg.
ReplyDeleteDear Mary, I learned something new: Summer squash! It looks lovely in salads too - and I am glad that I got a plant that doesn't need another one to bear garden produce.
Delete