Costata Romanesco

Costata Romanesco produces long, slender fruits with deep fluted ribbing running the length of each squash, giving it a distinctive silhouette among zucchini. Skin color is reported as ranging from pale to dark green, always marked with lighter stripes or raised ribbing that sets it apart visually. Even fruits left to grow as long as 18 inches keep firm, tender flesh, and the flavor is consistently described as rich, nutty, and complex.

This cultivar produces an abundance of male blossoms, which are prized for stuffing, soups, and deep-frying in traditional recipes. Italian cooks often harvest the fruit young, at four to five inches, with the blossom still attached at the tip; left to grow to about eight inches, it can instead be cooked whole or sliced into scalloped rounds. Beyond the blossoms, the squash itself is eaten raw as well as cooked into soups, stews, and fried dishes.

Costata Romanesco is an heirloom noted for disease resistance and vigorous growth, with plants that germinate quickly and grow fast. Its main stem is notably thick and tough, which gardeners report helps keep squash vine borers from tunneling inside, and the plants have shown resilience even in seasons when vine borers and squash bugs damage other varieties. The vines are prolific, producing multiple fruit a day from a single plant, and tend to keep bearing long after other zucchini plants have declined, though this extended vigor means they occupy more garden space over the season.

Costata Romanesco is an Italian heirloom, grown and valued in Italy for generations, with some accounts describing its cultivation there as stretching back centuries. It is regarded as a classic of Italian regional cooking, prized for its flavor and versatility in traditional dishes.