Name: Zucca Disfatta (Melted Golden Squash)
Yield: Serves 6
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 1 onion, finely chopped (about 1¼ cups); Chopped fresh mint, flat-leaf parsley, or rosemary for garnish (optional); 3 tablespoons olive oil or unsalted butter; ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional); 3 tablespoons finely minced citron, or 2 tablespoons grated lemon zest; Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste; 1 or 2 hard-skinned yellow squashes such as butternut, banana, or acorn, 3 pounds total weight

Preparation info

Serves
6

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Cucina Ebraica

By Joyce Goldstein

Published 1998

About

The yellow-orange squash of the Veneto is commonly called zucca barucca. For Jews, barucca is related to baruch, the Hebrew word for “blessed.” Non-Jewish Italians say this name is dialect for verruca, meaning bumpy and wartlike, describing the outer peel of the squash. What we do know for sure is that there are many Italian Jewish (as well as Spanish and Moroccan Jewish) recipes that call for the zucca barucca, the pumpkin squash that was brought to Italy