Squash and pumpkins

The history of cucurbits

Winter squash, summer squash (zucchinis), and pumpkins are part of the large gourd family, like melons and cucumbers. The Cucurbitaceae family includes about 120 genera and more than 800 species.

Squash is native to Central America, where the fruits and especially the seeds were consumed by the indigenous people. At that time, squash contained very little flesh and was mainly used as cooking utensils, musical instruments, and even as gourds for carrying beverages.

Although squash originates from America, it was primarily in Europe that the forms we know today evolved. It was in Cuba in 1492 that Christopher Columbus discovered squash, and in 1535, Jacques Cartier discovered them in the gardens of certain Iroquois tribes near Quebec. Antoine Nicolas Duchesne, an agronomist at the King’s Garden in Versailles, compiled names and organized the classification of more than a hundred squash species from the genus Cucurbita, supported by 258 drawings, in his “Histoire naturelle des courges” published in 1786. Charles Naudin also contributed to distinguishing several species of pumpkins in 1860.

At that time, squash was left to fully ripen before being consumed, which improved yields and facilitated preservation. Harvested in the fall, these are referred to as winter squash. Zucchini, also called summer squash, appeared in the 18th century when the Italians had the idea of consuming one variety of squash before it fully ripened. Before zucchinis spread in France in the early 20th century, they were known as Italian squash. It was in 1930 that the name “courgette” appeared, and since then, this fruit-vegetable has become a staple of Provençal cuisine.
Etymology

The word “courge” comes from the Latin “cucurbita,” which also gave the word “gourd” in French. The Ancients, who did not know squash, discovered them during the time of Christopher Columbus at the end of the 15th century. The term “cucurbita” originally referred to gourds, which were the only known in Europe at that time (also called calabashes or bottle gourds, genus Lagenaria). It was only in the 19th century that the use of the term “courge” became widespread in France to refer to the squash we know today, once the botanical classification was relatively stabilized.

The word “citrouille,” on the other hand, comes from the Latin “citreum,” meaning lemon, by analogy in color.