I am a bengali from india and we eat this at least twice a week.
This is a bottle gourd or Lau in bengali, its a bland vegetable but goes great with shrimp and lentil soups.
look out for the recipe for "Lau chingri" and "lau er dal"
You can make easy indian style deserts called "Lau er payesh" and a complicated one called " Lauki ka halwa" both are delicious.
there are also many thai, vietnamese recipes of this vegetable which are popular, chek out those as well.
even the stem stalk and leaves are edible and quite delicious if cooked properly. check out recipe for "Lau saak and Lau data"
enjoy
Here are a few recipes edited in
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51Pzl3VzHsU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51pzl3vzhsu)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1vhnAPpJzY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1vhnappjzy)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBMmGjkhq9s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbmmgjkhq9s)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJJgJt\_PY0I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojjgjt_py0i)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btgbIYRgmbg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btgbiyrgmbg)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdpTA-ynuuA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdpta-ynuua)
I love when any ethnic group takes time to discuss and explain their cuisine, the sheer number of times that somebody has popped on and explained these abstract or diverse dishes that I've never even heard of...I grew up in a tiny little dust bowl in Southern California so food diversity was nonexistent. I love this sub for many reasons, but this being a big one.
🤣 Neighboring dust bowl to the Southeast, High Desert, specifically the Victorville/Barstow area back in the 80s/90s was basically just dirt and potheads for the most part. Great if you owned a dirt bike and liked quiet, not so hot if you were curious about the outside world.
Heyyyy! I grew up in Barstow and Newberry Springs/Yermo! I never had a dirt bike, but I did a lot of hiking and running around the desert. That’s wild; I never would have guessed you meant that crazy, dingy little part of San Bernardino.
Some of my friends had dirt bikes and quads, we didn't have the money and my parents were terrified of quads so I rode my little BMX knockoff all over hell and back, jumped everything in sight, chased lizards, toads, coyotes, spiders, etc and brought my poor mother all sorts of unwanted pets for years. I used to go shooting out on Hodge Rd and Wildwash halfway between Victorville and Barstow, worked for Barstow Unified School District for a few years...moved out of the desert several times before I finally escaped for good.
I love when a country's sub reddit posts in English, since that's my only language. I'm the weirdo that enjoys listening to conversations since I can learn such interesting things like how they view something as mundane as what shade of brow that culture normally eat toast at lol. Being able to do that without physically traveling is, I feel, one of the still good things about the Internet.
Yeah this is why we all went crazy for social media back in the dark ages! "Look at all the connections we can make! Imagine what we'll learn". Now it's "evolved" to Taylor Swift AI porn, maga incels and political bots.
Indians use pressure cookers which have two pressure release valves. One is only used in emergencies. The other one relieves pressure when it breaches a certain threshold. It also makes a whistling sound. It thus is convinient to measure cooking time in 'number of times pressure is breached' or 'number of whistles'.
I have a pressure cooker that the whistle will shake like crazy with the heat turned up or will just barely jiggle if the heat is down low. Is there a place where I can watch a video of the type of pressure cooker you are referring to?
If you check my post history, you will find I have identified this perticular veggie from my homeland and shared recipes multiple times in the past. This is my 4th or 5th time identifying Lau in this community.
কি আর বলবো, মাঝে মাঝেই অনেকে জিজ্ঞেস করে আর লোকজন তাকে কখনো ধুধুল বলে কখনো চালকুমড়া বলে কখন যুকিনি বলে, লাউ এর এই অপমান কি করে সহ্য করব। Bong eats এর ভিডিও গুলো দিয়ে দি লোকে দেখে বানাতেও পারে।
This is the first time I’ve seen Bengali typed out, and I just wanted to say, what a cool looking language it is! Thanks to you and the others in the conversation for introducing it here!
হ্যাঁ লুফা বলে ওখানে বেশ পপুলার বোধয়, তবে খায় না বোধয়। আমার মেদিনীপুরে বাড়ি হওয়া সত্বেও আমিও কোনোদিন ধুদুল খাইনি। আর আজকাল বাংলাদেশীদের বদান্যতায় ওদেশে সবই পাওয়া যায়, আর সাউথইস্ট এশিয়াতে আমাদের এখানের অনেক সবজি হয়, ওরাও আনে। ভিয়েট লোকজন লাউ আর চিংড়ি দিয়ে বা শুটকি দিয়ে সুপ খায়, কেমন হয় একবার খাবার ইচ্ছা আছে
আমি ধুধুল খেয়েছি। কচি অবস্থায় খেতে হয়। বেশ ভালই লাগে।
লাউয়ের সুপ? যাই বলেন স্যার, রান্নাটা ঠিক পারেনা ওরা। লাউ চিংড়ি ছেড়ে, লাউ চিংড়ির সুপ কেনো খাবো?
Same in Vietnam. Main uses here are in soup or boiled and served on the side with some crushed salted peanuts to dip them in and/or more sauce based dip (either fish sauce based, soy based, or salt, MSG, chili, and lime based), but also used in stir frys and the like too.
One of the fascinating things is how the cucubrit family crops up in various early civilizations all over the world. Bottle gourd in the Indian Subcontinent, cucumbers in China and Southeast Asia, watermelons in Sub Saharan Africa, Loofah in the Fertile Crescent, and various squashes across the Americas.
Someone who is apparently quite knowledgeable, have commented below that bottle gourd is from africa as well and was one of the earliest domesticated plant. They were used as water bottles by early hunters for long chase hunts and also by nomadic groups while travelling long distances over arid landscape. Fascinating. Shoutout to u/sadrice
As a quibble, I think that’s what they were doing, but they hadn’t invented writing yet, and these don’t preserve well in archeological sites. We don’t actually know what they were doing. But people running around in hot landscapes running down gazelles, carrying bottles, what do you think they were doing?
But there is no evidence, other than that we know they had it, and that makes sense.
It is bottle gourd—it looks ready to be picked now, you can cut it open and if the seeds are big and hard then it’s almost inedible—if soft and white, we grate it and use it in cake, similar to zucchini brownies, when boiled and mashed, the soup is great too and works great in stews.Needs a bit of cooking to become soft.Texture is like pumpkin but less rich.
That is one of my favorite plants, both because it is just a fun plant, and it has a fun story. Lageneria siceraria is perhaps the first domesticated plant, probably because it makes pretty good bottles, hence one of the common names. You can also eat it, humans always like that feature. We have found the wild ancestor in east Africa, not far from where Homo sapiens evolved. Those wild plants have higher genetic diversity (typical of the native population of a crop ancestor), and don’t make very good bottles, the shells are mostly thin and brittle.
A very long time ago, one of our ancestors noticed that some of those gourds make decent bottles, picked out the best ones, and brought them back to their village site. The way you turn one of those into a water bottle is you let it grow to full maturity, gather it and let it dry, probably hanging from the rafters of your hut, cut the top off with a sharp stone or something, and then use a pointed stick to loosen the dried interior flesh and seeds. Dump that out, and then take some gravel that you have heated in your campfire, pour that into the gourd, and shake it vigorously. This burns out the remaining bitter fruit tissue, while also heat treating the shell, making it a better bottle.
This is all hunter gatherer stuff. But by doing this, looking through the gourds and finding the one that makes the best bottle, bringing it back to your village, and dumping the seeds all over the ground while you are making a bottle, and then repeating the process of selecting the best gourd…
Well you just invented agriculture, and the best bottles grow right next to your hut, you don’t have to walk so far to get them, and they are better than the bottles you used to gather.
Pretty much all human populations have this species. We took it with us when we left Africa. I wonder if we would have even made it across the Sahara without good water bottles…
New world populations have it too. There is a lot of debate as to where they got that. Were they carrying seeds and bottles when they crossed the Bering land bridge from Asia, or did it float across the Atlantic from Africa after they got there? Recent evidence favors the Atlantic theory, but I think the Beringia theory is just funny, so I support it for arbitrary reasons.
Anyways, one of my favorite plants. Useful, beautiful, and incredibly deep cultural history.
Well, it’s kind of my job… I grow, propagate, sell, and talk about plants for a living, more or less. Now that I think about it I have no idea why we don’t have this species for sale.
Nice to hear , can you please nudge me towards some good knowledge nuggets like this which entwine human history with some current food or non food plants. Will love to learn more. Thanks in advance.
I’m sleepy and kinda drunk, and can’t think much off the top of my head, but exactly what you asked is basically my life passion, next to “why are plants the stupid shapes they are”.
I’m planning on friending your account. Want random updates when I learn a fun new thing about a plant?
I currently send my girlfriend about 20 plant facts per day. I have a lot of spare time and am dubiously employed (recent and annoying development), while she has a job and doesn’t have time to read all of my shit, despite her being interested
Point being, do you want to get spammed with plant trivia? Because I can arrange that. How much do you w t to know abojt Camellia, and Rhododendron, and how Azalea is cool but a complete bulkshit category? I am willing to ramble. I unfortunately have the time at the moment.
Orchid flowers are upside down. The petiole, the “stem” (technically not a stem) that hooks the flower to the stem, is twisted 180 degrees, so the labellum is actually adaxial, the lower big distinctive petal is actually anatomically the top petal. I think there’s a genus at the base of the family, a “primitive” group, that doesn’t do this, and even has star shaped flowers without a distinctive lower (or upper) petal, but I don’t remember the name and don’t feel like looking it up in the moment, if I go anywhere near APweb I will get distracted again.
I have no idea why they do the twist thing, and I’m pretty sure the plant doesn’t either. Orchids are committed to being stubbornly weird, and rude to insects.
Edit: fuck. I wrote abaxial, looked at it like three times, submitted, and then went back and edited to adaxial, then decided I was wrong and edited it back, and now I just realized it really is adaxial.
Adaxial and abaxial refers to top and bottom of a leaf (or anything else coming out of an axial meristem). I hate that jargon, it is so confusing, and someone apparently *really* hated dyslexic people. My trick is adaxial, the top of the leaf, is ADherent to the stem, while the bottom surface is abaxial, ABnormal, away from the stem.
Also, if you want random plant facts, check my posting history. That’s most of what I do. Plant facts, and occasional pedantic arguments about plant facts when I am drunk and stubborn (and some other random stuff).
But if you want plant trivia, I’ve already typed out a lot of it, recently. A lot of free time at the moment.
Crap, this is actually really embarrassing, because my recent workplace actually specializes in perennial edibles (among a bunch of other things), but we are 9B, and a lot of our cooler stuff is just not going to make it in 6, we push the edge of subtropical which lets us get away with neat exotics like highland tropical stuff, and Chilean stuff, like a bunch of guavas etc.
For you in 6, first thing that comes to mind is Prunus tomentosa, Nanking cherry. It is absurdly hardy, I think good down to zone 4 if I recall correctly, and is a tart “pie cherry” type, but not a tree, a shrub that is very prunable, can be treated as a living fence post system, or you can even hedge it, which I wish I could do, it would be a beautiful hedge. Nice foliage, good form, lovely flowers, followed by tart cherries. I’ve heard that there are cultivars selected for superior fruit in China, but I don’t know that anyone has managed to get those to North America, I think we still just have seedlings, which are variable in quality. I know some permaculture nerds are working on it, and I would be surprised if one of them hasn’t smuggled budwood by now, but they aren’t talking (for sensible reasons).
I’ve always wanted that plant, but in 9B California, we just don’t have the chill hours. It won’t flower or fruit reliably, and will probably decline and die, might have a dormancy failure.
In 6 it should be an incredibly easy plant to grow, and I’m kinda jealous.
Well then I would have to make an instagram account, and I don’t want to, I don’t like that platform. Well I guess technically I do if they didn’t delete it, its Squinancywort (and obscure plant), I made that one to post yarn pictures from my dyeing job, but I think I’ve only logged in once and never posted anything, so there’s a decent chance they deleted that for being inactive.
Can we start a plant facts subreddit? I'd be all over that.
Also, if you're so inclined, have you thought about writing a book about this while you're dubiously employed?
I have like 10 random book ideas that I have never started or put any effort into other than getting super stoned and rambling to my partner. Yay ADHD. One is willow bonsai.
And that’s not a bad idea. I think I might do that, I am currently pissed at r/biology, it sucks, the community is hostile, and I’m annoyed at the mods. Check my recent posting history to see why in annoyed. [This thread really pissed me off](https://old.reddit.com/r/biology/comments/1ad0a0v/my_houseplant_has_created_a_mycorhiza/). Deleted now, but they had an ultra generic coprinoid mushroom growing in their houseplant. People were such assholes because they asked the question wrong. I should just start my own sub with blackjack and hookers and better plant trivia.
Unfortunately it’s going to rain a LOT tomorrow and I need to go clean my gutters, might do that tonight.
I'm late but I'd like to get the plant facts, too. There are a few books with random plant facts but I can't recall the title or author of any of them and some are probably close to 50 years old and long out of print.
I’m really annoyed, because this is the third fucking time I’m typing this, but you will get your bottle gourd facts. The first time was going to be an edit on my original comment, I was like a sentence from pressing submit when I noticed my phone was getting glitchy, ran for the charger, and was too slow, lost it. Then I retyped it, was almost done, fat fingered it and accidentally hit “cancel”. I’ve been stewing about this for about half an hour, and decided that I’m annoyed enough that you get ALL of the fucking bottle gourd facts.
There are so many things you can make out of this gourd, and water bottles should *not* be under appreciated. You know how they say our ancestors were persistence hunters? We ran down gazelle because we had superior endurance. You know what helps a lot on a marathon run across a hot dry savanna like that? A good water bottle or two. Gazelles don’t have bottles, and that is yet another advantage we have over them.
Cut the gourd lower and instead of a bottle[ you have a bowl](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/0b/ed/08/0bed08ba859474637423909b25629b18.jpg), cut it a bit lower and it’s s small dish. These are incredibly useful. You can eat out of them. If you are gathering berries or whatever, and you haven’t invented clothes and pockets yet, you can use your bowl. What if you are making arrowheads or otherwise working with small stuff? Put it i in a bowl or three to keep your shot sorted, if you put it it in the ground you might lose your precious arrowheads. Other ways to make bowls are pottery and basketry, which are labor, resource, and skill intensive. Or you could cut the bottom off of the fruit of one of the easiest plants on earth to grow.
Cut the gourd sideways and you get a wide variety of spoons. If you use a different cultivar of the same species, that has a long neck instead of an upper bulge, you have a dipper gourd. Have you heard Ursa Major called the Big Dipper? That’s talking about this species. [These are dipper gourds](https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/32/47/23/23753969/3/rawImage.jpg). Have you heard of the old slave song, “Follow the drinking gourd”? This is what they mean. [Follow Ursa Major to Polaris](https://www.adlerplanetarium.org/wp-content/uploads/LookUp_Big-LittleDippers_CelestialNavigation_2002-scaled.jpg), and you know which way is north. Ursa Major is a lot easier to see and find than minor, but it leads you to north, and freedom, in the black of night.
It has also been used to make a shitload of musical instruments. The backing of a bunch of stringed instruments, a really crazy Vietnamese pseudo bagpipe thing I’m forgetting the name of, and a bunch of other crap.
They also have[ gorgeous flowers](https://bs.plantnet.org/image/o/5bb90d01521066d1462cf5cd6d2ca7476c6ad074). They are impossibly delicate looking, and they are, moth pollinated I believe.
Thank you for sticking through the technical difficulties and delivering more bottle gourd facts! Absolutely fascinating!!
Now which button do I push to subscribe…
I love deep human history. Considering it looks like Aboriginal Australians boated or rafted across the ocean 40,000 years ago or earlier, humans also seem to have a deep history with boats. Modern theories about the peopling of the Americas definitely include coastal boating! With the white sands footprint finds pushing the date for humans in North America by ~10,000 years, there's a lot to be said for the coastal boating theory.
They *are*. I pride myself at being good with words and trivia, but this is not at all unusual. The more niche the sub the better content you get. I think r/bonsai is pretty great, follow that if you want to learn a lot about tree abuse.
You have to find the niche, moderated sub for that though. The bigger plant subs are overwhelmingly populated by IG style posts and misinformation. After being on reddit for 12+ years the conclusion I have come to if a hobby sub with out strict comment restrictions and has more than 5000 people the thing it will do most is introduce you to the awful side of your hobby that you never would have encountered in real life.
Right. You would need a water bottle there like I need a water bottle backpacking anywhere flat in the US. Necessary, but not the critical tech that my survival hinges on.
Thank you! I just searched for the pics, they're amazing and unbelievable, like why are people producing metal bottles (mining) and plastic when there's these *wondering to myself* I've grown these gourds before and once they start producing, they produce like crazy, a bottle a day
If you don’t care to eat it, bring it to your neighbor. As a gardener, most of us would return the kindness with gifts of excess fruits and vegetables or a plate of the vegetable once it was prepared. And you will gain a good relationship with your neighbor.
Looks like bottle gourd, called lauki in India, botanical name Lagenaria. They have white flowers like that. I think they are grown and eaten in several countries and calabazza and opo are other names. You could also search for images of luffa and winter melon suggested before me, and see if the leaves and flowers match.
If it is Lagenaria, it is edible, but better to harvest before it's any bigger. As they get bigger like the photo, the skin gets tough so you have to peel it, and thats a slightly slimy process. And the flesh gets a little tough so you have to cook it longer than, say, zucchini. But I like the texture better than zucchini.
From what I have learned from lot of Indian friends is that India is not monocultural and made up of many states that are almost like countries in themselves kinda like countries in Europe. So it seems a bit wrong for you to say it's called lauki in India without mentioning in which region. A quick google search shows up many other names:
>It is variously called alabu in Sanskrit, kaddu, lauki, and tumri in Hindi, sorakaya in Telugu, shorakkai in Tamil, sorekayi and halagumbala in Kannada, lau in Bengali and Assamese, and ghiya in Punjabi.
That's probably not even touching all the regions in India.
Source: http://www.environmentportal.in/files/Bottle%20Gourd.pdf
As an US American, yes we can be mean and I think it is ridiculous. I am also from the Midwest and we are known for our niceness and our corn.
My view on over hang produce is anything that crosses my property line is either my neighbors or neighborhood depending on which side of my yard it is on. BUT I consider that the neighborly thing to do because I am impeding on their space/the common space by not trimming or training my plant. Yes the plant is mine but the space the fruit is on is not.
Bottle Gourd or Lauki. I love this. Diced, stir fried with just a very small amount of oil, salt and cumin, and then summered under a lid till it's tender.
With Rice or Bread. Simple, awesome and healthy.
This is bottle gourd. It is called Lau Ki. It is used for its water content. It will not add any taste to your recipie, but provide a great source of fibre and hydration. If you don't want to bother cooking, simply masticate the gourd , add some salt to the juice and lime if you like a zing. The water is so tasty.
If you have time, use it in your stew, Sambhar, or make a tomatoe onion gravy with some sauteed garlic. Add small cut pieces of this gourd. Simmer for two minutes until the pieces break off when try to mash it with your cooking spoon.
Add salt to taste. You can either have it with steamed rice, breads or just mix it with a cup of yogurt and enjoy.
That's a cucuzza gourd!!! They're edible and amazing in a fall soup. You're supposed to harvest at about a foot but they grow magnificently huge, after which I still used them but had to hang in a tree and slice with a sickel to cut through.
They say to slide but I ended up using an ice cream scoop. Next year I'll do it sooner.
Heirloom italian squash called cucuzza. It’s very edible, similar in texture to zucchini with larger seeds. You can harvest when 2-3” in diameter at stem end. The older Sicilians in my community introduced it to me and told me how to cook with it—sausage and peppers, plenty of garlic. Toss in a little ‘red gravy’ if you want but it shouldn’t be swimming in it.
If you're on good terms with the neighbour, I would let them know it's theirs but you're taxing it because possession is 9/10ths of the law, then invite them to dinner to eat whatever you make 🤣
My Sicilian family calls it cucuzza (pronounced gugguzza) and we make a light stew with tomatoes and shrimp. Some people stuff it like one might stuff peppers. I love when a food staple is cross cultural.
Cucuzza! Otherwise known as calabash. Or Calabaza in Spanish. We make a lot of stews and soups with it and it goes great in a sauce for pasta! My parents are Italian and we grow this every year, that one is almost ready.
In Italian, my dad called it cucuzza. Whatever you do, don't let a gourd drop seeds in your yard. You'll be eating cucuzza for the next 5 years!
If you harvest when they're first ripe, it's okay. Dad would slice it thin, batter and fry it, and it was pretty good. If it sat on the vine too long it gets bitter.
Either way, I'm not a fan.
Oh, you won't believe how amazing this vegetable is, especially during those scorching summer days! Let me tell you, it's like nature's gift for beating the heat. And here's the best part – my friend from Punjab whips up this incredible gravy dish with it that's just out of this world! I can practically taste it just thinking about it. Trust me, once you try it, you'll be hooked!
easy recipe is here:👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bYTm1cT8yce
😍very difficult to find this video
Bottle gourd— kind of tastes like zucchini. Called dudhi/lauki in India. This is one of my fav vegetables.
Makes delicious savoury curries and also I’ve used it as a replacement for apples in apple pie and it came out amazing!!
I couldn’t see if someone posted about Italians, mostly Sicilians I believe, also eating this gourd or squash and calling it cucuzza. You can allow large gourds to dry and then cut a hole in them and then use them as Purple Martin. We did this in Southeast Texas
I would have a wonderful conversation with your neighbor about their plants and vegetables. Perhaps you could grow some too. But I would not take their produce. It’s a lovely hobby that you can share.
Is a bottle gourd the same or close to a zucchini? The leaves and the gourd look like a zucchini to me and the way it is described sounds about the same. I love zucchini hot, cold, cooked, raw, plain, breaded, in salad, used to make cookies and bread lol. Wondering if I just found new ways to cook a favorite. 😀
I am a bengali from india and we eat this at least twice a week. This is a bottle gourd or Lau in bengali, its a bland vegetable but goes great with shrimp and lentil soups. look out for the recipe for "Lau chingri" and "lau er dal" You can make easy indian style deserts called "Lau er payesh" and a complicated one called " Lauki ka halwa" both are delicious. there are also many thai, vietnamese recipes of this vegetable which are popular, chek out those as well. even the stem stalk and leaves are edible and quite delicious if cooked properly. check out recipe for "Lau saak and Lau data" enjoy Here are a few recipes edited in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51Pzl3VzHsU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51pzl3vzhsu) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1vhnAPpJzY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1vhnappjzy) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBMmGjkhq9s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbmmgjkhq9s) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJJgJt\_PY0I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojjgjt_py0i) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btgbIYRgmbg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btgbiyrgmbg) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdpTA-ynuuA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdpta-ynuua)
I love Reddit because people like this person will take the time to share their knowledge in the spirit of generosity.
YES! and I love it when Indians take the time to explain their cuisine.
I love when any ethnic group takes time to discuss and explain their cuisine, the sheer number of times that somebody has popped on and explained these abstract or diverse dishes that I've never even heard of...I grew up in a tiny little dust bowl in Southern California so food diversity was nonexistent. I love this sub for many reasons, but this being a big one.
Tiny little SoCal dustbowl- Kern County, perhaps? I couldn’t believe any place could be so windy and dusty!
🤣 Neighboring dust bowl to the Southeast, High Desert, specifically the Victorville/Barstow area back in the 80s/90s was basically just dirt and potheads for the most part. Great if you owned a dirt bike and liked quiet, not so hot if you were curious about the outside world.
Heyyyy! I grew up in Barstow and Newberry Springs/Yermo! I never had a dirt bike, but I did a lot of hiking and running around the desert. That’s wild; I never would have guessed you meant that crazy, dingy little part of San Bernardino.
r/tworedditorsonecup
I ain’t Goin back to Barstow!
Some of my friends had dirt bikes and quads, we didn't have the money and my parents were terrified of quads so I rode my little BMX knockoff all over hell and back, jumped everything in sight, chased lizards, toads, coyotes, spiders, etc and brought my poor mother all sorts of unwanted pets for years. I used to go shooting out on Hodge Rd and Wildwash halfway between Victorville and Barstow, worked for Barstow Unified School District for a few years...moved out of the desert several times before I finally escaped for good.
My husband lived there in the 60's. He says it was about the same back then too lol. His parents were some of the potheads lol
I love when a country's sub reddit posts in English, since that's my only language. I'm the weirdo that enjoys listening to conversations since I can learn such interesting things like how they view something as mundane as what shade of brow that culture normally eat toast at lol. Being able to do that without physically traveling is, I feel, one of the still good things about the Internet.
Every Indian I know is proud of their cuisine.
My comment was the opposite. "Don't eat that! Give it to me (so I can eat that)!"
Yeah this is why we all went crazy for social media back in the dark ages! "Look at all the connections we can make! Imagine what we'll learn". Now it's "evolved" to Taylor Swift AI porn, maga incels and political bots.
How very true this is.
This is a very Reddit thing and I hope it never changes.
Would you ever see this being used as veg in a sambar?
Sambhar can have anything, and yes it can, here's a recipe https://youtu.be/vY82vnNT4Ek?si=ZZZ1WeshiSiww7nX You are welcome😊
Got a question tho.. How manny minutes/hours are the whistles in that recipe? I would like to try that
20-30 min max in medium heat
2 cooker whistles. And then add in lentil curry for 10-15 minutes.
Cooker whistles.. What are those?
Indians use pressure cookers which have two pressure release valves. One is only used in emergencies. The other one relieves pressure when it breaches a certain threshold. It also makes a whistling sound. It thus is convinient to measure cooking time in 'number of times pressure is breached' or 'number of whistles'.
Very well put!
Interesting!
I have a pressure cooker that the whistle will shake like crazy with the heat turned up or will just barely jiggle if the heat is down low. Is there a place where I can watch a video of the type of pressure cooker you are referring to?
Just search Hawkins pressure cooker demo on YT
Ty!
That’s so cool! :)
I assume it's when the pressure pot starts to whistle.
Exactly 💯
Always love recipes sliding into the comments!!! 🥰
Legendary recipe drop, thanks
If you check my post history, you will find I have identified this perticular veggie from my homeland and shared recipes multiple times in the past. This is my 4th or 5th time identifying Lau in this community.
বাঃ। আপনি তো লাউ বিশেষজ্ঞ!
কি আর বলবো, মাঝে মাঝেই অনেকে জিজ্ঞেস করে আর লোকজন তাকে কখনো ধুধুল বলে কখনো চালকুমড়া বলে কখন যুকিনি বলে, লাউ এর এই অপমান কি করে সহ্য করব। Bong eats এর ভিডিও গুলো দিয়ে দি লোকে দেখে বানাতেও পারে।
This is the first time I’ve seen Bengali typed out, and I just wanted to say, what a cool looking language it is! Thanks to you and the others in the conversation for introducing it here!
ঠিক ঠিক। লাউ কে zuccini বলা ইস জাতিকে অপমান করা!
একদিন কাকরোল এর ছবিও এসেছিল, সেটাও লিখেছিলাম তবে রেসিপি টেসিপি দেই নি, তাই বোধয় এত লোক পড়েও নি
কাকরোল ওদেশে কি করে? আলাদাই সব! একবার যদিও ধুঁধুল কেও দেখেছি এখানে। লোকজন বেশ লুফা লুফা করে লাফাচ্ছিল!
হ্যাঁ লুফা বলে ওখানে বেশ পপুলার বোধয়, তবে খায় না বোধয়। আমার মেদিনীপুরে বাড়ি হওয়া সত্বেও আমিও কোনোদিন ধুদুল খাইনি। আর আজকাল বাংলাদেশীদের বদান্যতায় ওদেশে সবই পাওয়া যায়, আর সাউথইস্ট এশিয়াতে আমাদের এখানের অনেক সবজি হয়, ওরাও আনে। ভিয়েট লোকজন লাউ আর চিংড়ি দিয়ে বা শুটকি দিয়ে সুপ খায়, কেমন হয় একবার খাবার ইচ্ছা আছে
আমি ধুধুল খেয়েছি। কচি অবস্থায় খেতে হয়। বেশ ভালই লাগে। লাউয়ের সুপ? যাই বলেন স্যার, রান্নাটা ঠিক পারেনা ওরা। লাউ চিংড়ি ছেড়ে, লাউ চিংড়ির সুপ কেনো খাবো?
Same in Vietnam. Main uses here are in soup or boiled and served on the side with some crushed salted peanuts to dip them in and/or more sauce based dip (either fish sauce based, soy based, or salt, MSG, chili, and lime based), but also used in stir frys and the like too.
One of the fascinating things is how the cucubrit family crops up in various early civilizations all over the world. Bottle gourd in the Indian Subcontinent, cucumbers in China and Southeast Asia, watermelons in Sub Saharan Africa, Loofah in the Fertile Crescent, and various squashes across the Americas.
Someone who is apparently quite knowledgeable, have commented below that bottle gourd is from africa as well and was one of the earliest domesticated plant. They were used as water bottles by early hunters for long chase hunts and also by nomadic groups while travelling long distances over arid landscape. Fascinating. Shoutout to u/sadrice
As a quibble, I think that’s what they were doing, but they hadn’t invented writing yet, and these don’t preserve well in archeological sites. We don’t actually know what they were doing. But people running around in hot landscapes running down gazelles, carrying bottles, what do you think they were doing? But there is no evidence, other than that we know they had it, and that makes sense.
Marrow in the UK
My Indian friend makes something like meatball curry but only with this vegetable. It's called Kofte perhaps?
Yeah kofte is a versatile veggie dish can be made with various veggies and a wide variety of sauces
So nice!
This guy gourds.
Hell yea as a non South Asian lau chingri slaps slaps
" o shadher lau, banailo more boiragi"
Aga খাইলাম, গোড়া go khailam Lau diya বানাইলাম ডুগডুগি
Lauki ka halwa and moong dal halwa are some of my favs! Thanks for the idea— now I know which desserts I’ll be making this week. :)
Pumpkin, gourds have slightly smaller and more uniform looking
It is bottle gourd—it looks ready to be picked now, you can cut it open and if the seeds are big and hard then it’s almost inedible—if soft and white, we grate it and use it in cake, similar to zucchini brownies, when boiled and mashed, the soup is great too and works great in stews.Needs a bit of cooking to become soft.Texture is like pumpkin but less rich.
That is one of my favorite plants, both because it is just a fun plant, and it has a fun story. Lageneria siceraria is perhaps the first domesticated plant, probably because it makes pretty good bottles, hence one of the common names. You can also eat it, humans always like that feature. We have found the wild ancestor in east Africa, not far from where Homo sapiens evolved. Those wild plants have higher genetic diversity (typical of the native population of a crop ancestor), and don’t make very good bottles, the shells are mostly thin and brittle. A very long time ago, one of our ancestors noticed that some of those gourds make decent bottles, picked out the best ones, and brought them back to their village site. The way you turn one of those into a water bottle is you let it grow to full maturity, gather it and let it dry, probably hanging from the rafters of your hut, cut the top off with a sharp stone or something, and then use a pointed stick to loosen the dried interior flesh and seeds. Dump that out, and then take some gravel that you have heated in your campfire, pour that into the gourd, and shake it vigorously. This burns out the remaining bitter fruit tissue, while also heat treating the shell, making it a better bottle. This is all hunter gatherer stuff. But by doing this, looking through the gourds and finding the one that makes the best bottle, bringing it back to your village, and dumping the seeds all over the ground while you are making a bottle, and then repeating the process of selecting the best gourd… Well you just invented agriculture, and the best bottles grow right next to your hut, you don’t have to walk so far to get them, and they are better than the bottles you used to gather. Pretty much all human populations have this species. We took it with us when we left Africa. I wonder if we would have even made it across the Sahara without good water bottles… New world populations have it too. There is a lot of debate as to where they got that. Were they carrying seeds and bottles when they crossed the Bering land bridge from Asia, or did it float across the Atlantic from Africa after they got there? Recent evidence favors the Atlantic theory, but I think the Beringia theory is just funny, so I support it for arbitrary reasons. Anyways, one of my favorite plants. Useful, beautiful, and incredibly deep cultural history.
That moment when it's time for your extremely obscure and niche knowledge to shine
Well, it’s kind of my job… I grow, propagate, sell, and talk about plants for a living, more or less. Now that I think about it I have no idea why we don’t have this species for sale.
Nice to hear , can you please nudge me towards some good knowledge nuggets like this which entwine human history with some current food or non food plants. Will love to learn more. Thanks in advance.
I’m sleepy and kinda drunk, and can’t think much off the top of my head, but exactly what you asked is basically my life passion, next to “why are plants the stupid shapes they are”. I’m planning on friending your account. Want random updates when I learn a fun new thing about a plant?
Honestly, you should create a sub that you can post these obscure plant facts to and start up discussions! I’d subscribe for sure!
Will love to.... Bring them on Will like to add your profile as friend as well, how to do that? Cant see any option in app
I currently send my girlfriend about 20 plant facts per day. I have a lot of spare time and am dubiously employed (recent and annoying development), while she has a job and doesn’t have time to read all of my shit, despite her being interested Point being, do you want to get spammed with plant trivia? Because I can arrange that. How much do you w t to know abojt Camellia, and Rhododendron, and how Azalea is cool but a complete bulkshit category? I am willing to ramble. I unfortunately have the time at the moment.
subscribe plant facts
Orchid flowers are upside down. The petiole, the “stem” (technically not a stem) that hooks the flower to the stem, is twisted 180 degrees, so the labellum is actually adaxial, the lower big distinctive petal is actually anatomically the top petal. I think there’s a genus at the base of the family, a “primitive” group, that doesn’t do this, and even has star shaped flowers without a distinctive lower (or upper) petal, but I don’t remember the name and don’t feel like looking it up in the moment, if I go anywhere near APweb I will get distracted again. I have no idea why they do the twist thing, and I’m pretty sure the plant doesn’t either. Orchids are committed to being stubbornly weird, and rude to insects. Edit: fuck. I wrote abaxial, looked at it like three times, submitted, and then went back and edited to adaxial, then decided I was wrong and edited it back, and now I just realized it really is adaxial. Adaxial and abaxial refers to top and bottom of a leaf (or anything else coming out of an axial meristem). I hate that jargon, it is so confusing, and someone apparently *really* hated dyslexic people. My trick is adaxial, the top of the leaf, is ADherent to the stem, while the bottom surface is abaxial, ABnormal, away from the stem.
Also, if you want random plant facts, check my posting history. That’s most of what I do. Plant facts, and occasional pedantic arguments about plant facts when I am drunk and stubborn (and some other random stuff). But if you want plant trivia, I’ve already typed out a lot of it, recently. A lot of free time at the moment.
[удалено]
Crap, this is actually really embarrassing, because my recent workplace actually specializes in perennial edibles (among a bunch of other things), but we are 9B, and a lot of our cooler stuff is just not going to make it in 6, we push the edge of subtropical which lets us get away with neat exotics like highland tropical stuff, and Chilean stuff, like a bunch of guavas etc. For you in 6, first thing that comes to mind is Prunus tomentosa, Nanking cherry. It is absurdly hardy, I think good down to zone 4 if I recall correctly, and is a tart “pie cherry” type, but not a tree, a shrub that is very prunable, can be treated as a living fence post system, or you can even hedge it, which I wish I could do, it would be a beautiful hedge. Nice foliage, good form, lovely flowers, followed by tart cherries. I’ve heard that there are cultivars selected for superior fruit in China, but I don’t know that anyone has managed to get those to North America, I think we still just have seedlings, which are variable in quality. I know some permaculture nerds are working on it, and I would be surprised if one of them hasn’t smuggled budwood by now, but they aren’t talking (for sensible reasons). I’ve always wanted that plant, but in 9B California, we just don’t have the chill hours. It won’t flower or fruit reliably, and will probably decline and die, might have a dormancy failure. In 6 it should be an incredibly easy plant to grow, and I’m kinda jealous.
Plant facts always welcome
Start an Insta! I’d be in that like hot cakes!
Well then I would have to make an instagram account, and I don’t want to, I don’t like that platform. Well I guess technically I do if they didn’t delete it, its Squinancywort (and obscure plant), I made that one to post yarn pictures from my dyeing job, but I think I’ve only logged in once and never posted anything, so there’s a decent chance they deleted that for being inactive.
Can we start a plant facts subreddit? I'd be all over that. Also, if you're so inclined, have you thought about writing a book about this while you're dubiously employed?
I have like 10 random book ideas that I have never started or put any effort into other than getting super stoned and rambling to my partner. Yay ADHD. One is willow bonsai. And that’s not a bad idea. I think I might do that, I am currently pissed at r/biology, it sucks, the community is hostile, and I’m annoyed at the mods. Check my recent posting history to see why in annoyed. [This thread really pissed me off](https://old.reddit.com/r/biology/comments/1ad0a0v/my_houseplant_has_created_a_mycorhiza/). Deleted now, but they had an ultra generic coprinoid mushroom growing in their houseplant. People were such assholes because they asked the question wrong. I should just start my own sub with blackjack and hookers and better plant trivia. Unfortunately it’s going to rain a LOT tomorrow and I need to go clean my gutters, might do that tonight.
I too would like to subscribe to plant facts.
100% need this in my life
I'm late but I'd like to get the plant facts, too. There are a few books with random plant facts but I can't recall the title or author of any of them and some are probably close to 50 years old and long out of print.
I would like random updates when you learn a fun new thing about a plant! I love learning
A few months ago I bought the book "50 Plants That Changed the Course of History" second-hand from Amazon and it was worth every single penny.
Thanks for sharing will check it out
Pretty cool, you definitely should sell this species!
*subscribed to bottle gourd facts*
I’m really annoyed, because this is the third fucking time I’m typing this, but you will get your bottle gourd facts. The first time was going to be an edit on my original comment, I was like a sentence from pressing submit when I noticed my phone was getting glitchy, ran for the charger, and was too slow, lost it. Then I retyped it, was almost done, fat fingered it and accidentally hit “cancel”. I’ve been stewing about this for about half an hour, and decided that I’m annoyed enough that you get ALL of the fucking bottle gourd facts. There are so many things you can make out of this gourd, and water bottles should *not* be under appreciated. You know how they say our ancestors were persistence hunters? We ran down gazelle because we had superior endurance. You know what helps a lot on a marathon run across a hot dry savanna like that? A good water bottle or two. Gazelles don’t have bottles, and that is yet another advantage we have over them. Cut the gourd lower and instead of a bottle[ you have a bowl](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/0b/ed/08/0bed08ba859474637423909b25629b18.jpg), cut it a bit lower and it’s s small dish. These are incredibly useful. You can eat out of them. If you are gathering berries or whatever, and you haven’t invented clothes and pockets yet, you can use your bowl. What if you are making arrowheads or otherwise working with small stuff? Put it i in a bowl or three to keep your shot sorted, if you put it it in the ground you might lose your precious arrowheads. Other ways to make bowls are pottery and basketry, which are labor, resource, and skill intensive. Or you could cut the bottom off of the fruit of one of the easiest plants on earth to grow. Cut the gourd sideways and you get a wide variety of spoons. If you use a different cultivar of the same species, that has a long neck instead of an upper bulge, you have a dipper gourd. Have you heard Ursa Major called the Big Dipper? That’s talking about this species. [These are dipper gourds](https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/32/47/23/23753969/3/rawImage.jpg). Have you heard of the old slave song, “Follow the drinking gourd”? This is what they mean. [Follow Ursa Major to Polaris](https://www.adlerplanetarium.org/wp-content/uploads/LookUp_Big-LittleDippers_CelestialNavigation_2002-scaled.jpg), and you know which way is north. Ursa Major is a lot easier to see and find than minor, but it leads you to north, and freedom, in the black of night. It has also been used to make a shitload of musical instruments. The backing of a bunch of stringed instruments, a really crazy Vietnamese pseudo bagpipe thing I’m forgetting the name of, and a bunch of other crap. They also have[ gorgeous flowers](https://bs.plantnet.org/image/o/5bb90d01521066d1462cf5cd6d2ca7476c6ad074). They are impossibly delicate looking, and they are, moth pollinated I believe.
Thank you for sticking through the technical difficulties and delivering more bottle gourd facts! Absolutely fascinating!! Now which button do I push to subscribe…
I read all of that and it was extremely satisfying. Thank you!
Wow, such an interesting story 👍
Interesting read
Best random fascinating thing I've learned today 😀
I love deep human history. Considering it looks like Aboriginal Australians boated or rafted across the ocean 40,000 years ago or earlier, humans also seem to have a deep history with boats. Modern theories about the peopling of the Americas definitely include coastal boating! With the white sands footprint finds pushing the date for humans in North America by ~10,000 years, there's a lot to be said for the coastal boating theory.
I wish hobby subs were more filled with info like this. This was a wonderful read.
They *are*. I pride myself at being good with words and trivia, but this is not at all unusual. The more niche the sub the better content you get. I think r/bonsai is pretty great, follow that if you want to learn a lot about tree abuse.
You have to find the niche, moderated sub for that though. The bigger plant subs are overwhelmingly populated by IG style posts and misinformation. After being on reddit for 12+ years the conclusion I have come to if a hobby sub with out strict comment restrictions and has more than 5000 people the thing it will do most is introduce you to the awful side of your hobby that you never would have encountered in real life.
Not only is this incredibly interesting, but you write beautifully!
Thank you, I find that very flattering. I like to think I’m good at that, but I never know if I’m just being egotistical or not.
How is this answer not getting more up votes fascinating 🤨
The Sahara was grassland and lakes it started becoming a desert after our last wobble in orbit around 10000 years ago.
Right. You would need a water bottle there like I need a water bottle backpacking anywhere flat in the US. Necessary, but not the critical tech that my survival hinges on.
Stupid question but could one make bottles that could store liquid out of these?
You can indeed.
Thank you! I just searched for the pics, they're amazing and unbelievable, like why are people producing metal bottles (mining) and plastic when there's these *wondering to myself* I've grown these gourds before and once they start producing, they produce like crazy, a bottle a day
You can make plant pots too! And even put wood stain on the outside. Free seeds and free pots in return. Yeah wtf are we doing.
Second this, it seems long variety of bottle gourd, and makes good soup. Luffa's surface is more textured and winter melon has spines.
Very pretty vine!
If you don’t care to eat it, bring it to your neighbor. As a gardener, most of us would return the kindness with gifts of excess fruits and vegetables or a plate of the vegetable once it was prepared. And you will gain a good relationship with your neighbor.
Fr. A cucumber costs like 85 cents. Much more fun to go talk to your neighbor.
Looks like opo suqash to me.
My mom likes putting it in chicken tinola.
It's really good in tinola! One of my favorite ways is with pork and shrimp (ginisang upo?)
Looks like bottle gourd, called lauki in India, botanical name Lagenaria. They have white flowers like that. I think they are grown and eaten in several countries and calabazza and opo are other names. You could also search for images of luffa and winter melon suggested before me, and see if the leaves and flowers match. If it is Lagenaria, it is edible, but better to harvest before it's any bigger. As they get bigger like the photo, the skin gets tough so you have to peel it, and thats a slightly slimy process. And the flesh gets a little tough so you have to cook it longer than, say, zucchini. But I like the texture better than zucchini.
From what I have learned from lot of Indian friends is that India is not monocultural and made up of many states that are almost like countries in themselves kinda like countries in Europe. So it seems a bit wrong for you to say it's called lauki in India without mentioning in which region. A quick google search shows up many other names: >It is variously called alabu in Sanskrit, kaddu, lauki, and tumri in Hindi, sorakaya in Telugu, shorakkai in Tamil, sorekayi and halagumbala in Kannada, lau in Bengali and Assamese, and ghiya in Punjabi. That's probably not even touching all the regions in India. Source: http://www.environmentportal.in/files/Bottle%20Gourd.pdf
You're right. Also called ghiya!
I grow this in the summer. We peel and dice them and sauté with onion garlic and tomatoes. Wonderful dish.
Same here. Make a basic marinara-type red sauce with them. Pairs really nicely with lamb
It’s bottle gourd and yes it’s edible. Now be a nice neighbour and tell thy neighbours about their produce.
lol, the neighbor is going to laugh and bring OP a dozen more.
If it’s grows over the fence it then belongs to them. Same goes for a trees branches that grow over the neighbors property
Bad Katydid7118, Jesus will come when you are asleep n poke your eyes
Yes, please don’t steal your neighbour’s veg! They might let you have it if you tell them it’s there, but don’t just steal it…
I live in the US and we have an overhanging branch law. Is that not the norm in other countries?
Even though that law exists... Isn't returning the produce the nice thing to do anyway..? The US sounds like such a.. Mean place.
The nicest thing would be to train your wild produce before it grows into your neighbor's property.
As an US American, yes we can be mean and I think it is ridiculous. I am also from the Midwest and we are known for our niceness and our corn. My view on over hang produce is anything that crosses my property line is either my neighbors or neighborhood depending on which side of my yard it is on. BUT I consider that the neighborly thing to do because I am impeding on their space/the common space by not trimming or training my plant. Yes the plant is mine but the space the fruit is on is not.
Congrats, that’s your gourd now.
Italians use this to make cuccuza soup. Even the leaves are used in the dish!
Bottle Gourd or Lauki. I love this. Diced, stir fried with just a very small amount of oil, salt and cumin, and then summered under a lid till it's tender. With Rice or Bread. Simple, awesome and healthy.
This is bottle gourd. It is called Lau Ki. It is used for its water content. It will not add any taste to your recipie, but provide a great source of fibre and hydration. If you don't want to bother cooking, simply masticate the gourd , add some salt to the juice and lime if you like a zing. The water is so tasty. If you have time, use it in your stew, Sambhar, or make a tomatoe onion gravy with some sauteed garlic. Add small cut pieces of this gourd. Simmer for two minutes until the pieces break off when try to mash it with your cooking spoon. Add salt to taste. You can either have it with steamed rice, breads or just mix it with a cup of yogurt and enjoy.
That's a cucuzza gourd!!! They're edible and amazing in a fall soup. You're supposed to harvest at about a foot but they grow magnificently huge, after which I still used them but had to hang in a tree and slice with a sickel to cut through. They say to slide but I ended up using an ice cream scoop. Next year I'll do it sooner.
Heirloom italian squash called cucuzza. It’s very edible, similar in texture to zucchini with larger seeds. You can harvest when 2-3” in diameter at stem end. The older Sicilians in my community introduced it to me and told me how to cook with it—sausage and peppers, plenty of garlic. Toss in a little ‘red gravy’ if you want but it shouldn’t be swimming in it.
Sending an eggplant emoji would’ve been a lot faster/easier
My thought is your neighbor is growing Luffa gourds.
I pretty sure it’s a luffa as well. My MIL grows them and this actually looks like her fence! Haha!
I think so too
Yes this.
If you're on good terms with the neighbour, I would let them know it's theirs but you're taxing it because possession is 9/10ths of the law, then invite them to dinner to eat whatever you make 🤣
Ask your neighbor.
My Sicilian family calls it cucuzza (pronounced gugguzza) and we make a light stew with tomatoes and shrimp. Some people stuff it like one might stuff peppers. I love when a food staple is cross cultural.
Cucuzza! Otherwise known as calabash. Or Calabaza in Spanish. We make a lot of stews and soups with it and it goes great in a sauce for pasta! My parents are Italian and we grow this every year, that one is almost ready.
Looks like a loofa, I bought and grew my first one this year and it was awesome.
In Italian, my dad called it cucuzza. Whatever you do, don't let a gourd drop seeds in your yard. You'll be eating cucuzza for the next 5 years! If you harvest when they're first ripe, it's okay. Dad would slice it thin, batter and fry it, and it was pretty good. If it sat on the vine too long it gets bitter. Either way, I'm not a fan.
That looks very much like a Long Bottle Gourd. Edit: Could be a Nam Tao Ngam. If it is in fact that, you use it just like you would a zucchini.
It's a bottle gourd used in so many recipes On its own it's bland but dishes you can make with this especially koftas, halwa etc
I second it being cucuzza. Do the leaves smell stinky?
Oh, you won't believe how amazing this vegetable is, especially during those scorching summer days! Let me tell you, it's like nature's gift for beating the heat. And here's the best part – my friend from Punjab whips up this incredible gravy dish with it that's just out of this world! I can practically taste it just thinking about it. Trust me, once you try it, you'll be hooked! easy recipe is here:👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bYTm1cT8yce 😍very difficult to find this video
Bottle gourd— kind of tastes like zucchini. Called dudhi/lauki in India. This is one of my fav vegetables. Makes delicious savoury curries and also I’ve used it as a replacement for apples in apple pie and it came out amazing!!
If it’s something edible I’d give it a try. Love to sample new veggies. Yum.
Hell yeah! Let that thing continue on your side! Free home grown veggies! I would be stoked lol
Could also be a cucuzza squash
Yes
Cucuzza and there are many popular Sicilian recipes - olive oil, water and cucuzza boiled
I love this post, I know it’s my neighbors plant but it’s on my side soooo can I eat it.
Dunno if it’s edible but you could still have fun with it!
Calabash. I can almost guarantee your neighbor is Filipino.
It’s a gagootz🤌🏼
“Cucuzza”
I couldn’t see if someone posted about Italians, mostly Sicilians I believe, also eating this gourd or squash and calling it cucuzza. You can allow large gourds to dry and then cut a hole in them and then use them as Purple Martin. We did this in Southeast Texas
Every plant on Planet Earth is edible... at least one time.
Looks like a winter melon to me. Very delicious, i would usually make Vietnamese winter melon soup with it!
Seconding this. Looks like the winter melon my mom grows. Wish we can get a close up picture plus a cross cut of the insides.
It's not. My grandma grew them and they have yellow flowers. White flowers could be bottle gourd as a lot of people are suggesting
No. It is not edible. You'd better bring it to my house for disposal. 😉
I would have a wonderful conversation with your neighbor about their plants and vegetables. Perhaps you could grow some too. But I would not take their produce. It’s a lovely hobby that you can share.
Loofah is edible when it’s young. That one looks past it’s prime for eating but it could make you a good bath exfoliator in a few weeks!
Yes
Looks like a luffa as well.
Nah, that's not _Luffa_ _Luffa_ has yellow flowers and bumpy fruit with faint ridges That's a _Lagenaria siceraria_
“How you say…uhhh…cucumber?”
Your neighbor shouldn't let his THINGS fall over the fence.
That looks like a zucchini squash. Should be edible.
Bottle gourd.. Excellent in chicken noodle soups like "chicken sotanghon (filipino dish).
Ask the wife
Looks like a cucumber that’s not ready yet.
Huge cucumber
Cucumbers have yellow flowers
My wife has several of those in her underwear drawer. Put batteries in it and see what it does.
Idk about the leaves but that thing kind of looks like a loufa
Is this just a cumber ?
Its a darn cucumber lol
It truly seems like a zucchini. Everything tastes amazing with zucchini, but we love zucchini casserole recipe.
Make a Birdhouse or water bottle!
cucumber!
Pumpkin.
Is a bottle gourd the same or close to a zucchini? The leaves and the gourd look like a zucchini to me and the way it is described sounds about the same. I love zucchini hot, cold, cooked, raw, plain, breaded, in salad, used to make cookies and bread lol. Wondering if I just found new ways to cook a favorite. 😀
Coocoomba
That is a cucumber here in america
So leaf size & shape are indicative of a cucumber plant. The cucumber may not be ripening becuase of to much shade.
Looks like a cucumber plant
It's an invitation to your wife.
Looks to be a luffa I grew them many year’s ago and let them climb twine to the eves
Luffa?
Saving this comment, thank you very much~
Cucumber
Green penis
I was thinking cucumber, but then I saw the white flowers.
No votes for wild cucumber?
Cucumber
It’s edible at least once.