The courgette games
Every year in July and August, Latvians find themselves in a pickle, or to be more correct, a courgette, also known as a zucchini. Latvians have a culture of tending their own vegetable gardens. If they don't have one, there will likely be someone close to them with a garden full of homegrown cucumbers, dill, potatoes - and courgettes. Once again, a large part of the nation seems to have failed to calculate how many courgette seedlings to plant – what if this one doesn't grow? This is the start of the yearly courgette games.
After cooking as many different courgette dishes as possible or following the annual recipe suggestions in the media, the only option left is to find a way to get rid of them. Either by passing them on to others, who are likely also overwhelmed by their own courgette crop. Give them to neighbours, extended family, friends of friends and literally anybody who is kind enough to not give a hard ”no!” in response to the pressing question: ”Need a courgette?” Or even by tricking your friends. Now Latvians are making memes about smuggling kabacīši (courgette in Latvian) into the bags of their guests.
At the time of writing, I am sitting in my mother's house in Latvia, a pile of courgettes waiting in the corner, my mother's testament to an argument by horticulture experts that each plant produces at least 15 courgettes. It's the second half of August and one of her three seedlings has given up after a season of working hard and definitely exceeding the number of 15, but the other two are still at it. Several courgettes I brought to Riga a few weeks ago can still be found in the flats of my friends. Some of them I traded for apples. Apple season, by the way, is also in full bloom.