What is the name of this vegetable/fruit?

Question

When I was in Napoli, Italy recently I saw this thing hanging up that looked like a watermelon but had a long neck. Nobody knows what it is and it's driving me barmy! One person has suugested Zucca, Pumpkin, but can't find any evidence for this. Help!

It had the colour of a watermelon, so green with white bits and is spherical at the bottom, with a long neck that makes it look like a pipe or pot! Grr! It's so annoying!

Answer 1

Zucca? You mean zucini? May be its eggplant.

Answer 2

Zucchini (US, Australian, and Canadian English) or courgette (New Zealand and British English) is a small summer marrow or squash, also commonly called Italian squash. Its Latin name is Cucurbita pepo (a species which also includes other squash). It can either be yellow or green and generally has a similar shape to a ridged cucumber, though a few cultivars are available that produce round or bottle-shaped fruit. Unlike the cucumber it is usually served cooked, often steamed or grilled. Its flower can be eaten fried or stuffed. Culinarily, zucchini is considered to be a vegetable. However, biologically, the zucchini is a fruit, being the swollen ovary of the zucchini flower. Zucchini are traditionally picked when very immature, seldom over 8in/20cm in length. Mature zucchini can be as much as three feet long, but are often fibrous and not appetizing to eat.

Zucchini is one of the easiest vegetables to cultivate in a temperate climate. As such, zucchini has a reputation among home gardeners for overwhelming production, and a common type of joke among home growers revolves around creative ways of giving away unwanted zucchini to people who already have been given more than they can use.

In 2005, a poll of 2,000 people revealed the courgette to be Britain's 10th favourite culinary vegetable. In Mexico, the flower (known as Flor de Calabaza) is preferred over the fruit, and is often cooked in soups or used as a filling for quesadillas.

Closely related, to the point where some seed catalogs do not make a distinction, are Lebanese summer squash or kusa, which closely resemble zucchini but often have a lighter green or even white color.

Answer 3

There is a variety of Italian pumpkin called Gigante di Napoli. This is dark green with a long neck and orange flesh.

Answer 4

Its Italian Pumpkin

Answer 5

Sounds almost like a butternut squash to me. What colour was it....if orange in colour then i would say Butternut squash but if green then probably Zucchini. Egg plant or aubergine is purple in colour usually.

Answer 6

Unripe Aubergine.

Butternut Squash and Pumpkin grow on the ground.

Answer 7

There are many different types of plants that this could be, here are 2 examples:

Lagenaria siceraria Birdhouse or Bottle (Calabash Bottle Gourd) "Zucca Bottiglia"

Cucurbita moschata f1 Ultra Butternut "Zucca Butternut"

Answer 8

It was probably a gourd - they are of the same family as pumpkin and squash and are usually grown for ornamental purposes.

Answer 9

May be butternut squash. Its a vegetable and sold in supermakets usally near potatoes.

Answer 10

Sounds like a gourd.

(Check with Google images)

Answer 11

Sounds like butternut squash, what colour was it?