<<I suppose a squash is similar, but more yellowish in colour rather than green, and eaten as a vegetable>>
"Squash" is actually a very generic term in the US, as Answer.com can testify:
squash1 (skwŏsh, skwôsh)
n.
Any of various tendril-bearing plants of the genus Cucurbita, having fleshy edible fruit with a leathery rind and unisexual flowers.
The fruit of any of these plants, eaten as a vegetable.
[From alteration of Narragansett askútasquash.]
Squashes, like gourds, come in a variety of colors and sizes. Pumpkins are considered a type of "winter squash", as are butternut and acorn squashes; they are predominately round, are often split in half and baked, and have sweet, mashable flesh that is usually golden or orange and taste best with butter and a little brown sugar. Pumpkin also makes an excellent soup and the traditional (sweet) Thanksgiving pie. Butternut squash soup is excellent as well.
"Summer squashes" would include your courgette (zucchini) and other long, tubular types with firmer flesh; they can be either yellow or green and are usually sliced and sauteed, or cut up into soups and stews along with other vegetables. A local specialty around here is calabacitas (from Spanish "calabasas", which is similar to "calabash", if you want a cognate), which involves sliced zucchini and yellow squash sauteed with onions, tomatoes, corn, and cheese -- oh, my god it's good! They aren't generally used in sweet dishes, though.
The summer and winter appellations have to do with when the two varieties typically ripen and are eaten.
I'm guessing that the Narragansett word "squash" was wrestled out of also gave rise to an etirely different American dish called "succotash", which is a mixture of corn and lima beans. I think you might call lima beans broad or butter beans? Anyway, this is wild speculation, but it is interesting that corn, beans, and squash were considered the "holy trinity" of Native American agriculture -- the Iroquois called them "the Three Sisters", and they were always planted together across the entire continent. That was because they actually grew better when planted together -- the tall cornstalks provided a natural trellis for the bean vines to climb up, the beans provided nitrogen-fixing bacteria to the soil, and the prolific leaves of the spreading squash shaded and mulched the ground. Beans and corn, when eaten together, provide a complete source of protein, as each lacks certain essential amino acids that the other one has, and I believe squashes are rich in vitamins. Corn and beans remain a basic staple of Indian and traditional Mexican diets -- bean burritos, of course! As well as Indian frybread with frijoles, quite popular in the northern part of New Mexico. Along with blue corn mush, which I can personally do without....
<<Next to the marrows and courgettes on the supermarket shelves are the aubergines - a dark purple colour in sharp contrast to the greens and yellows. Or as you guys call them - egg plants, so called because of their shape? You tell me...... >>
Eggplants I guess are called that from the shape, although the purple color makes them look pretty un-egglike. We may not use the word "aubergine" for the veggie but we DO use it to refer to a shade of purple. Although it's usually a muted reddish-purple, rather than the glossy blackish-purple of the actual fruit. Don't much care for the stuff myself, except as baba ganoush.
<<Many of them when they arrived here didn't even know that Brits inexplicably drove on the "wrong" side of the road, let alone call a zucchini a courgette or an egg plant an aubergine or a faucet a tap as well as all the other linguistic differences between us. I'm glad they exist, aren't you? It makes it more interesting when baffling each other. >>
Faucet and tap are interchangeable in the US, although inexplicably, you usually hear "faucet" for the fixture and "tapwater" for what comes out of it! Go figure. (And there are regional variations, of course -- tap is still common in some parts of the country.)
"Squash" is actually a very generic term in the US, as Answer.com can testify:
squash1 (skwŏsh, skwôsh)
n.
Any of various tendril-bearing plants of the genus Cucurbita, having fleshy edible fruit with a leathery rind and unisexual flowers.
The fruit of any of these plants, eaten as a vegetable.
[From alteration of Narragansett askútasquash.]
Squashes, like gourds, come in a variety of colors and sizes. Pumpkins are considered a type of "winter squash", as are butternut and acorn squashes; they are predominately round, are often split in half and baked, and have sweet, mashable flesh that is usually golden or orange and taste best with butter and a little brown sugar. Pumpkin also makes an excellent soup and the traditional (sweet) Thanksgiving pie. Butternut squash soup is excellent as well.
"Summer squashes" would include your courgette (zucchini) and other long, tubular types with firmer flesh; they can be either yellow or green and are usually sliced and sauteed, or cut up into soups and stews along with other vegetables. A local specialty around here is calabacitas (from Spanish "calabasas", which is similar to "calabash", if you want a cognate), which involves sliced zucchini and yellow squash sauteed with onions, tomatoes, corn, and cheese -- oh, my god it's good! They aren't generally used in sweet dishes, though.
The summer and winter appellations have to do with when the two varieties typically ripen and are eaten.
I'm guessing that the Narragansett word "squash" was wrestled out of also gave rise to an etirely different American dish called "succotash", which is a mixture of corn and lima beans. I think you might call lima beans broad or butter beans? Anyway, this is wild speculation, but it is interesting that corn, beans, and squash were considered the "holy trinity" of Native American agriculture -- the Iroquois called them "the Three Sisters", and they were always planted together across the entire continent. That was because they actually grew better when planted together -- the tall cornstalks provided a natural trellis for the bean vines to climb up, the beans provided nitrogen-fixing bacteria to the soil, and the prolific leaves of the spreading squash shaded and mulched the ground. Beans and corn, when eaten together, provide a complete source of protein, as each lacks certain essential amino acids that the other one has, and I believe squashes are rich in vitamins. Corn and beans remain a basic staple of Indian and traditional Mexican diets -- bean burritos, of course! As well as Indian frybread with frijoles, quite popular in the northern part of New Mexico. Along with blue corn mush, which I can personally do without....
<<Next to the marrows and courgettes on the supermarket shelves are the aubergines - a dark purple colour in sharp contrast to the greens and yellows. Or as you guys call them - egg plants, so called because of their shape? You tell me...... >>
Eggplants I guess are called that from the shape, although the purple color makes them look pretty un-egglike. We may not use the word "aubergine" for the veggie but we DO use it to refer to a shade of purple. Although it's usually a muted reddish-purple, rather than the glossy blackish-purple of the actual fruit. Don't much care for the stuff myself, except as baba ganoush.
<<Many of them when they arrived here didn't even know that Brits inexplicably drove on the "wrong" side of the road, let alone call a zucchini a courgette or an egg plant an aubergine or a faucet a tap as well as all the other linguistic differences between us. I'm glad they exist, aren't you? It makes it more interesting when baffling each other. >>
Faucet and tap are interchangeable in the US, although inexplicably, you usually hear "faucet" for the fixture and "tapwater" for what comes out of it! Go figure. (And there are regional variations, of course -- tap is still common in some parts of the country.)