The other day, I chatted to a friend while she cut up zucchini (although they will always be courgettes to me) – a dark-green variety with tiny, white speckles called nero di Milano. One by one, she held the courgettes across the palm of her left hand, close enough that the round end pressed into her yellow T-shirt. Then, using a small, barely serrated knife with a plastic handle, she lopped off the stalk before slicing the courgette first lengthways, then, holding the two halves, across so half-moons dropped straight into the frying pan.
It was cutting: nothing special, and yet it was special, personal and spare; no chopping board or surface needed, nothing to wash or wipe. We talked about this, and she laughed like a drain at how, like her dad, her aim was “as little washing up as possible”. Her dad’s daughter, she also loves great wine, cheap crisps, football and developed early-onset arthritis in her 30s – or, as she describes it, “drunk hands and creaky fingers” – which gets harder and harder to ignore with every passing year. “I always hated sharp knives anyway! Straight edges, too. And uneven pieces taste better, anyway,” she said while picking up another courgette and pressing it into her stomach. “In a few years, I’ll be using a hammer.”
