A courgette not to forget

I’ve overstretched. When is a courgette ever unforgettable? And now I’ve gone way existential (see Clueless for reference) I have form on this. At a moment of high tension in one of my friend’s novels a character stuffs incriminating papers into a “disposable bag.” When he’d digested my feedback on the draft my friend emailed, “I am willing to forgive the half an hour philosophical traipse you sent me on with ‘What makes a bag disposable?’”

To make things worse, I’ve realised that the life snippet I wanted to weave into this post doesn’t work. The tale I intended to tell has to do with cucumbers. A courgette by any other name is not a cucumber.

Never one to let words get in the way of a good story…recently I was asked to read from the Haftarah (extracts from the Book of the Prophets). It was my first time standing on the bimah (the platform in the synagogue from which people read or give sermons). I decided that as reading from long sometimes difficult to follow passages is part of my job I wouldn’t give the text more than a cursory glance in advance.

The synagogue’s Haftarah book is an ancient tome, one of those you might pull out of the bookcase to activate a secret passageway, or thud down on a desk, and open in a cloud of dust to find a spell. I managed the first page sounding suitably stentorian. Then I switched my gaze to the page on my left, because it’s a synagogue so you read right to left, right? It took me a few sentences to realise what I was reading made no sense. The rabbi joined me on the bimah, and asked me where I thought I was. Not in a “who do you think you are?” way I hasten to add. Others crowded around, at a loss as to where it had all gone wrong. Then a hand, I don’t know whose, turned the page making it clear that I needed to be reading left to right, right? As he stepped off the bimah the rabbi said “don’t worry you’re doing really well.” We all knew I wasn’t.

Surprisingly, I was invited back the following week. I assured everyone that as I now knew which way the book went, I wouldn’t mess up. The book had other ideas. When I squared up to it the designated page fell out. I ploughed on.

I decided to erase all public memory of my prior performance by giving a perfect rendition in Hebrew of the prayer said after the reading. I was a sentence in when I lost all sense of the letters, and any clue as to how to say the words. For a moment I wondered if I should just run a bunch of consonants together, “vdchbv,” and hope no-one noticed. Plan B was to stand really still and hope no-one noticed, that I even existed. Someone in the wings murmured the word and I continued, sort of, kind of, just about, probably 32% accuracy. After the first paragraph there was a collective exhalation, and a few “shkoyachs” (good job) before everyone realised I had two paragraphs to go. Collective inhalation, and holding of breath.

What might you ask has any of this to do with cucumbers? It’s because the only thing I can remember of either of these embarrassing attempts at reading is the line, “a lodge in a garden of cucumbers.” I expect the writers really meant courgettes but got confused, it’s easily done.

Drum roll for the courgettes/non-cucumbers, in this case marinated. They’re a Sicilian specialty brought to the North of Italy by Jews fleeing the Inquisition. You fry slices of courgette until they are turning brown on both sides, dry them on kitchen paper, then layer the slices in a bowl, sprinkling the layers with mint leaves, dashes of vinegar, sugar and salt. You could also add finely chopped garlic into each layer (see previous posts for why I don’t). Leave to marinate for a few hours and serve cold.

Now I think about it, it would probably work with cucumbers too. But I’m faithful to Claudia.