Yellow summer squash (one of several cultivated Cucurbita pepo) is a type of yellow-coloured summer squash. It is also known as straightneck squash to distinguish it from its close relative, the yellow crookneck squash. It has mildly sweet and watery flesh, and thin tender skins that can be left on the fruit for many types of recipes. It was almost certainly domesticated in the eastern United States, although other variants of the same species (zucchini, pumpkin) were domesticated in Mesoamerica. The squash grows on vined plants reaching 60 centimetres (2.0 ft) to 90 centimetres (3.0 ft) in height that thrive in mild weather. It is well known as an item in American cooking, and is often used in recipes interchangeably with zucchini in which it is fried, microwaved, steamed, boiled, or baked. A good yellow summer squash will be small and firm with tender skin free of blemishes and bruising. It is available all year long in some regions, but it is at its peak from early through late summer.
Famous quotes containing the words yellow, summer and/or squash:
“It was a quiet Sunday morning, with more of the auroral rosy and white than of the yellow light in it, as if it dated from earlier than the fall of man, and still preserved a heathenish integrity.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is said that a carpenter building a summer hotel here ... declared that one very clear day he picked out a ship coming into Portland Harbor and could distinctly see that its cargo was West Indian rum. A county historian avers that it was probably an optical delusion, the result of looking so often through a glass in common use in those days.”
—For the State of New Hampshire, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“I am filling the room
with the words from my pen.
Words leak out of it like a miscarriage.
I am zinging words out into the air
and they come back like squash balls.
Yet there is silence.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)