a land without squash

That fabled time when my partner and I got to a level where we were co-cooking, and I cooking in his kitchen, was an introductory period for him to my version of steamed veggies, the kind that maintain their texture and don't fall off your fork. No doubt he was familiar with steamed vegetables on his own table but they were usually only marginally less soft than boiled vegetables. The remarks he has made while eating the ones I steam has been appreciative, aghast perhaps, verging on gastro-orgasmic, if there is such a thing. "They're lovely, perfectly al dente!" he is oft to exclaim, waving his fork in wide circles. His gesticulating and showering praise of my otherwise mundane cooking (I mean, c'mon, how unimaginative are steamed vegetables?) made me feel like... well, like a domestic house goddess.

In that budding of our relationship I learned how far it was he was rared from steamed vegetables, and how far he was rared, as well, from anything other than turnips, carrots, parsnips, cabbage and spuds.

Zucchini (or courgettes to my local Irish pals), butternut squash, marrow, and pumpkins, etc., would all be somewhat exotic in these parts. The other day I mentioned to an Irish neighbour of mine, who had resided for much of her life in Canada, that I was cooking a squash to go with dinner. "A SQUASH?!" she said, "Have they got those here now? Where did you get it?" I was taken a little aback, as I only got the bloody thing in Tesco, not the most upmarket of shops. But there it was. My man and this neighbour, proof that when it comes to squash it truly is a North American thing.

I take these things for granted. I have had, and grown sick of, squash and then grown to love it again as an adult. Squash is something you grow in your garden and when you compost it after consumption, your compost is taken over by volunteer squash vines. Squash is something you have coming out your ears this time of year, and you give it away to everyone who comes within a 50 yard radius of your house, and what they don't take you feed to the horses or cows or pigs. Or you throw it in the compost only to watch a new squash plant take over the heap. They're bloody everywhere.

It reminds me of all that Ireland didn't have until very recently, and how much I took for granted while growing up in California. I thought nothing of the huge bags of oranges we would buy off the truck at the flea market on a Saturday. I thought nothing of growing just about anything we wanted to grow and being successful at growing them. Beautiful tomatoes (which, stupidly, I didn't have a taste for back then). Peppers. Basil. Chard. Leafy lettuces. Fruits! Of all kinds, shapes and sizes! Oh, we had raspberries overflowing from our freezer. There were avocados... ripe ones. Huge strawberries. Cherries. Plums. Apples. Yum...

So, back to the steamed veggie bit, made even more exotic when it's baby courgette (or baby zucchini to my local US pals). My partner is oft to stare down at his plate between mouthfuls of watery, yet crunchy greens and say, "Tis far from this I was rared," and then tell me about "The Boiling".

"The Boiling". In his time, everything was a starchy root vegetable and it was boiled to within an inch of its life. Thus the texture of said root veg was soft... and not much else. Everything would resemble everything else. Even if broccoli or cauliflower was used, it too would be boiled and would turn listless with flavours intermingled with earthy, spuddy flavours, the green all but gone from the stalks. In his childhood home a step into the wild would have been an onion, boiled and thrown on the plate beside the other veggies.

A plate of what I had to offer would have gone down like a lead balloon, if my man's mother were able to join us at dinner. She would have said, tutting and looking scornfully down at her baby zucchini (if she were alive to say so, God rest her), "That's not cooked." I don't know if she would have ventured forward in the eating of it after the remarks she would have allegedly made, but I hope she would have tried them. Maybe she would have liked them with butter.

So for now our plates are adorned with all things autumnal: Curly kale; squash, steamed and then sauteed with softened onions; zucchini and sour cream; squash baked with crushed fresh ginger; sweet potatoes with cajun seasoning; butternut squash and mushroom risotto. And I am reminded almost every day that these are relatively new things in this part of the world, and that fresh, recognisable veg is a relatively new thing in some households, too. And it makes me wonder, now that we've discovered these things in Ireland, if we're going to manage to grow these crops at home now that we can hardly afford to import them? Or will we go back to just stodgy veg? And if we do, will we treat them with more respect than we did in the days of yore?