I'm a bit puzzled because "courgette" is the French word for zucchini, but the vegetable she uses looks nowhere like yellow zucchini in the pictures. It's certainly a kind of squash, but there are no seeds and the flesh is a deep and uniform yellow.

Any ideas?

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Originally posted by LazyGoddess:
I always thought that doing a sage rub on lamb was almost a given sort of thing, but then again I've never had lamb so I could just be hallucinating.

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Yes, a courgette is a zucchini.

I'm going to have to go to a bookshop and look at forever summer, check this out.

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Originally posted by kena:
Does anyone know what kind of vegetables "yellow courgettes" might be? I just got Nigella Lawson's "Forever Summer" and several recipes use this.

I'm a bit puzzled because "courgette" is the French word for zucchini, but the vegetable she uses looks nowhere like yellow zucchini in the pictures. It's certainly a kind of squash, but there are no seeds and the flesh is a deep and uniform yellow.

Any ideas?

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Originally posted by Princessjeanne:
I'm thinking she probably means what's called summer squash or yellow squash here - they do sort of look like zucchinis though. The small ones have very few seeds and can be cut easily - they don't have the thick skin of a winter squash.
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Originally posted by kena:
I think that's it! At least that what it looks like, although I've never seen a vegetable like this at my farmer's market. Maybe I could substitute another kind of squash, like butternut (maybe steamed a bit beforehand to compensate for the longer cooking time)?

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eta: It probably goes without saying, but I noticed the instructions after I'd dumped the curry in. Naturally.

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Originally posted by Princessjeanne:
I have a mozzarella string-cheese stick on my desk. It seems well-sealed, but it's been there since thursday. Today being monday, is this going to kill me if I eat it?

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Disclaimer: My food knowledge comes from the same woman known to have said "Hafta eat a peck of dirt before you die" on a regular and frequent basis.

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Originally posted by crowjoy:
I think I've seen slab bacon at the meat counter where the butcher slices it for you.

Not that I'm encouraging to play fast and loose with their tolerance for rotting food, but really... I mean, didn't they cure meat in the day of old so it would last all winter/year without refrigeration? Isn't cheese actually a storage unit for dairy nutrition? I need me a dose of the food history channel.

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Meats (especially beef and pork) used to be packed in barrels of salt & smoked to make it through the winter. The beef stuff was called hardtack I think and seems to be a cousin of beef jerky... the pork became bacon or just salt pork, I think.

As far as cheese goes, it was one of those accidental food discoveries - some Roman put milk in a sheep's bladder or something, rode off to conquer something or whatever Romans were doing when they traveled, discovered his milk had turned solid, and ate it anyway. The book I have says that it was probably a lot like cottage cheese & the process of making harder/purposfully aged cheeses evolved over the years with lots of trial and error.

Bacon nowadays is nowhere near salty enough to stay preserved for long periods of time.