Help a girl out! Photo included...

[aveggie]

What is this that I have grown?
Found seeds from last year and I cannot remember.
I reckon courgette, husband reckons marrow.
Hand for reference!

It’s a bloody big courgette. I’m with your dh marrow I think.

But it's not stripy!!!???

Looks like a huge courgette to me!

Marrow.

Nnnooo. Huge courgette!

Does it really matter. Either will be yummy.

It doesn't really matter.
But husband was questioning why I had added marrow when I said we were having courgette.

It's a tweenie, a very big courgette or a small marrow

I've been making jam with mine

It was only in a pasta bake. So I'm sure it doesn't make much difference.
But I would really like to be right!!!

I thought a marrow was just a courgette that's been grown for longer. Looks very appetising though whatever it is.

Um, aren't marrows just huge courgettes? I didn't think they were actually a different thing? I'd say that was once definitely a courgette.

Well google is telling me different things.
Some say that marrow is just overgrown courgette, others say different vegetable.

RHS say closely related, but not the same thing.
BBC good food says that marrows are overgrown courgettes.

A marrow is a large courgette.

More proof!!!

Definitely a courgette.

Remembering grannie's stuffed marrow now. Mince, breadcrumbs, onion, chopped tomato, cheese and a fresh tomato sauce to pour over. It was yum with mashed potatoes and a green veg.

Same species Cucurbita pepo, but varieties grown for courgettes will be those that produce a lot of fruits, varieties grown as marrows will be selected for large fruits. So if you bought a marrow variety, you could get courgettes off it, just not as many.

Hence the confusing messages on google - one lot are giving the marrow equivalent of "purple sprouting and cabbage are the same" (they're both Brassica oleracea) and others are saying "purple sprouting is grown for its flower buds and cabbage is grown for its leaves" - yet you can eat the leaves of purple sprouting, and you can eat the flower buds of cabbage.

So @MereDintofPandiculation what's your guess? Courgette or marrow? You sound like the expert!

I wouldn't claim expertise, but here goes: I don't think that's a question with a definitive answer.

However - marrows are usually harvested when ripe, at which point the skin is tougher and they can be kept for quite a while without rotting. But when they're ripe, the seeds are harder, and you'll want to scoop them out. At which point it starts to beg for being stuffed with a rich minced meat mixture (other stuffings are available) and baked.

With a still immature fruit like that, I would cook it as a courgette and use it in recipes which call for courgettes. So I'm with you, not your DH.

You could appease him by pointing out that the French for squash is courge, so a courgette is merely a baby squash. Rather like the Portuguese have frango and galinha depending on the age of the chicken - frango is when you're better off braising it in a rich sauce with wine, onions, tomatoes and garlic.