Z=Zucchini The Premeditated Zucchini Switcheroo

Well, we have reached the end of the A to Z Challenge and what a fun month it has been, learning about all kinds of foods from around the world and/or the history of said foods!

Today I guess I could have talked about Zoodles, or my delicious Zucchini chips, but in keeping with this month’s theme, I decided to tell this funny little story about a stolen zucchini in the city of Stamford, Connecticut. The “ahem” crime occurred at the Weed Memorial and Hollander Branch of one of the town’s libraries, which is housed in a 19th-century farmhouse.

On the sunny outdoor patio where Youth Services Librarian Marissa Bucci had been tending to a raised garden for a year, an intruder struck and this disaster happened: as she went to water her single, promising zucchini, she noticed a much lighter zucchini-shaped object in it’s place. Some thief had taken her precious zucchini and replaced it with a cucumber!!

The zucchini was days away from being large enough to pick, and now it had mysteriously disappeared! The branch supervisor had been worried that with no fence or cameras, someone could easily get onto the patio and steal what was growing there, yet had decided to take the risk. They never considered a crime like this would shake them to the marrow.

Luckily, they have kept their sense of humor about the whole caper, even though they have no leads on the “suspect” and realize more produce could get “replaced” like their sad little zucchini. If it were to happen again, they said with a grin, “We’d probably find it quite funny.”

What big hearts they have!

I do hope you have enjoyed this month-long challenge as much as I have, and you can look forward to me sharing more foods and or interesting places around the world courtesy of Gastro Obscura and Atlas Obscura! Stay tuned for more in the future!