No-Recipe Recipes: Spilled Milk #350

The glorious glut: In praise of summer squash and the American cucina povera

Today’s newsletter includes:

• musings on American cucina povera and everything we can do with a summertime bounty of squash

• a “no-recipe recipe” for stewed squash with onions, plus the stellar pasta dish you can make with your leftovers

• a step-by-step video breaking down how an overabundance of squash (plus a few onions) can turn into multiple meals, including that final pasta dish (bonus points if you have fresh tomatoes on hand!)

Every summer, like an overenthusiastic houseguest who doesn’t know when to leave, zucchini arrives in uninvited abundance. It spills over from suburban raised beds, multiplies obscenely in backyard gardens and is pressed into the arms of unsuspecting neighbors like a horticultural chain letter. Church basements and food co-ops suddenly start to look like zucchini crime scenes. There are quick breads, fritters, pickles, muffins, casseroles, even brownies … the zucchini, it seems, must be stopped.

But to complain about this glut is to misunderstand the deep, democratic pleasure of summer squash. It is not merely the vegetable of abundance; it is the vegetable of resourcefulness, of invention, of adaptation. It is the verdant symbol of America’s own cucina povera: our tradition of making much from little, of elevating humble ingredients through ingenuity, technique and an almost pathological refusal to waste.

In Italy, cucina povera is a badge of pride, a cooking philosophy born of scarcity but shaped by cultural elegance — think ribollita or pappa al pomodoro. In America, we have no such label for the dishes born out of Depression-era kitchens and rural Southern farms, but summer squash is one of its enduring saints. Cheap, prolific and obliging, it has always been food for the many, not the few.

Great news, Spilled Milkers: “The Blue Food Cookbook” is available for preorder. It’s a celebration of fish and shellfish and will be your seafood bible.

Preorder it today through Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, Amazon or your favorite local bookstore.

Let’s start with the shape-shifting nature of the squash itself. Zucchini is just the start; there’s also crookneck, straight neck, pattypan, cousa, zephyr, eight ball, tromboncino, gold bar and the gorgeously striped Costata Romanesco, which looks as if it were designed by a Florentine architect with a fondness for vegetables. Each varietal has its own texture and flavor profile: some buttery and tender, others nutty or slightly grassy, with skins ranging from gossamer-thin to waxy-tough. What they share is an almost irritating willingness to adapt. They grill, roast, braise, fry, bake, steam, pickle, shred, sauté, purée and even masquerade, badly, as pasta. Please, no zoodles.