Sicilian serpent

[malkymoo]

Anybody else ever tried these? I bought a packet of seeds at a garden centre sale at the end of last season for 50p, labelled sicilian serpent or cucuzza, a sort of gourd. The result is seen below, the hedge it is growing on is about 3 metres tall. The fruit is 133cm long and still growing. Need to learn how to cook them now!

[Gengulphus]

A bit of searching suggests it's a variety of calabash (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calabash). It doesn't look all that much like any of the photographs in that link, but the leaf shape looks similar to me, the link does say "They grow in a variety of shapes: they can be huge and rounded, small and bottle shaped, or slim and serpentine, more than a metre long.", and it also says under culinary uses that "In Italian cuisine, it is known as cucuzza (plural cucuzze)." That might be confirmed by the botanical name Lagenaria siceraria or Lagenaria vulgaris if the seed packet gives it.

If so, I would probably beware of letting it ripen too much, given what the link says about "occasional toxicity"!

Gengulphus