Creeps Come in Pairs

"The better to see you with, my dear," say the pattypan squash eyes.

I got these at the Tomatero Organic Growers stand at the Noe Valley farmers' market back in the early fall (I pulled these photos out of the Weird Veg archival crisper).

"And the better to bear our appalling decrepitude together," say the jujubes, which were crisply sweet but strangely spongy yet stiff to chew when I ate them, also back in September.

Yes, these are jujubes, or Chinese dates, not to be confused with Jujubes the candy, which are actually made from potato starch, but were originally made from a mysterious vegetable-based gum called ju-ju gum (I can't get a satisfying answer on what exactly this "ju-ju gum" is or was, and the Internet stories of a tropical berry have clearly not been properly fact checked, so if anyone has more legit info, drop it in the comments section). While Jujubes come in nondescript thimble form, Jujyfruits actually make the effort to look like real produce, including asparagus, pea pod, and tomato shapes, which have zero relation to the fruit flavors that their colors represent. This well-written candyblog entry has everything you should know about these two kinds of candy.

Now it's up to you to decide which is the good juju and which the bad juju. More on juju magic here.

And Knowing's Half the Battle: You schooled me, now I squash you

Okay, so you edumacated me big time. Thanks for the cherry tomato suggestion. I did slice them in half for a salad (next post!), although I have to admit that I kind of like squishing them whole in my mouth. Does that make me a slob?

On the pattypan vs. sunburst squash issue, it's a tricky one. The answer to your question of whether that's a pattypan or sunburst in your crisper is, "Yes."

Here's what my convoluted Internet trail-blazing led me to: The sunburst squash is a kind of pattypan, pattypan being marked by its flying-saucer shape with scalloped edges and sunburst being a yellow variety of pattypan.

Dictionary.com's entry for pattypan identifies the pattypan's color as white, or greenish-white. If you want a more official aggie site, the UK's Royal Horticultural Society calls the sunburst the best variety of "Patty Pan" (they separate the two words, but I think they're kind of jolly squished together and in all lower-case letters). Also, they associate the pattypan with winter squash, which is perplexing:

"The Patty Pan types of winter squash, all of which can be left to develop and mature for winter storage, seemed to work particularly well when harvested young. The fruits are not unlike flying saucers with flat, round fruits and wavy edges. Undoubtedly the best of these was the cultivar ‘Sunburst’ which produced many small, bright yellow fruits."

My last source, The Cook's Thesaurus, lists pattypan (one word!) as part of the family of summer squash. Summer squash is distinguished from winter by the fact that you can eat it entire, seeds, rind, and all. I think I'll side with the Cook's Thesaurus over those British blue-bloods on calling the pattypan a summer squash. They also give a nod to the sunburst, "There are green and yellow varieties; yellow ones are sometimes called sunburst squash."

I first heard the term "pattypan" from The Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver. He uses them in a delicious Food Network recipe for couscous with grilled summer vegetables that I like to make for potlucks or big groups of people.

[Insert cringe-worthy pun involving "squash" here, i.e. "I hope I squashed that question," or "Sure ran that one through the squashing machine," etc.]