Calabash (Lagenaria siceraria)

The calabash or bottle gourd or opo squash or long melon (not to be confused with the calabaza) is a vine grown for its fruit, which can either be harvested young and used as a vegetable or harvested mature, dried, and used as a bottle, utensil, or pipe. For this reason, one of the calabash subspecies which is longer and slimmer is known as the bottle gourd. The fresh fruit has a light green smooth skin and a white flesh. However the rounder varieties are called Calabash gourds.

The calabash was one of the first cultivated plants in the world, grown not for food but as a container. It was named for the calabash tree (Crescentia cujete).

The calabash, as a vegetable, is frequently used in southern Chinese cuisine as either a stir-fry or in a soup. The Chinese name for calabash is hulu (simplified Chinese: 葫芦; traditional Chinese: 葫蘆; pinyin: húlu) or huzi (Chinese: 葫子; pinyin: húzi) in Mandarin.

In Japan, the species is known as hyōtan (瓢箪, 瓢簞?) or yūgao (夕顔?), with the former word referring particularly to the larger-fruiting variety whose fruits are used mostly for making containers or other handicrafts and the latter referring to the smaller-fruiting variety whose fruits are more edible. Names that are used to refer particularly to the fruit of one or another variety of this species include fukube (瓠, 瓢, ふくべ?) and hisago (瓠, 匏, 瓢, ひさご?). It is most commonly sold in the form of dried, marinated strips known as kanpyō and is commonly used as an ingredient for making makizushi (rolled sushi).

In Korea, it is known as bak (박) or jorongbak (조롱박).

In Myanmar, Burma, it is known as Boo thee, a popular fruit, young leaves are also boiled and eaten with spicy hot fermented fish sauce called Nga peet.

In the Philippines, it is known as upo.

In Italian cuisine, it is known as cucuzza (plural cucuzze).

In Central America, the seeds of the Calabash gourd are toasted and ground with other ingredients (including rice, cinnamon, and allspice) to make the drink horchata. Calabash is known locally as morro or jícaro.

In Colombia and Venezuela, the Calabash is known as a tapara or totuma.

In Tanzania, the pulp coated seeds of the Calabash are known as buyu (singular)/mabuyu (plural). These sour pulp coated seeds are gently cooked with sugar and coloured with food colouring and sold as sweets in coastal towns.

In Pakistan, it is known as lauki in Urdu.

In India, it is known as lauki, dudhi (दूदी) or ghiya (घीया) in Hindi; churakka (ചുരക്ക) in Malayalam; Jatilao in Assamese; lau in Bengali; Sorakaaya (సొర కాయ) or anapakaya in Telugu; dudhi-Bhopala (दुधी) in Marathi; sorekayi in Kannada; and suraikkaai (சுரைக்காய் colloq. sorakkay) in Tamil. In parts of India, the dried, unpunctured gourd is used as a float (called surai-kuduvai in Tamil) to learn swimming in rural areas. The dried and cored thick outer skin has traditionally been used to make musical instruments like the tanpura, veena, etc.

In Bangladesh it is called lau (লাউ).

In (Nepali) it is called “lauka”.

In Arabic it is called qara. The tender young gourd is cooked as a summer squash.

In Vietnam, it is called bầu canh or bầu nậm and is used in a variety of dishes: boiled, stir-fried, soup dishes and as a medicine.

The shoots, tendrils, and leaves of the plant may also be eaten as greens.

Additionally, the gourd can be dried out and used to smoke pipe tobacco. A typical design yielded by this squash is recognized (theatrically) in the pipe of Sherlock Holmes. But Doyle never mentions Holmes using a calabash pipe. It was the preferred pipe for stage actors portraying Holmes, because they could balance this pipe better than other styles while delivering their lines.

Like other members of the Cucurbitaceae family, calabashes contain cucurbitacins that are known to be cytotoxic. A toxin called tetracyclic triterpenoid cucurbitacins compound, present in fruits and vegetables of the cucumber family, is responsible for the bitter taste and can cause ulcers in the stomach. In extreme cases, people have died from drinking calabash juice.