Chayote seems to be a vegetable favored by Mexican-Americans. I have had it several ways (mashed, baked, cooked with corn), and it always tasted bland and watery. Why do people eat this stuff?
I recall, years ago, my honeymoo trip to Baja California-the hotel resturant served it every night, as a vegetable…blechh!
Do you eat chayote? Why?:smack:
I have tried it a couple of times, nothing I would deliberately eat unless I was hungry and there wasn’t anything else, or I was visiting and eating it to be polite.
I think it tastes pretty much like all summer squash. And it’s cheaper.
I don’t like it cooked (bland, squishy). But it’s very tasty raw. Kind of tastes like the peeled stalk of broccoli (which I also enjoy) without all the work.
You married a cow?
Down in southern Louisiana, the same vegetable is known as the mirliton (pronounced locally as “mella-TAWN”). It is a holiday side-dish staple in our family, trotted out reliably every Thanksgiving, Xmas, and Easter.
Mirliton doesn’t have much taste of it’s own, but it reliably takes on the taste of any add-ins (cf. tofu). Here’s a typical New-Orleans-area recipe for mirliton from the chef at one of our renowned neighborhood eateries. My mom’s recipe is similar, except she uses way more shrimp and no ham. The finished product is ambrosia – my mom makes many gallons of it during the holidays, and all of our out-of-town relatives take home a few quarts.
It’s cheap (free), it fills your tummy, and it doesn’t taste bad. It’s pretty much undetectable in soups, etc. The tender leaves are also edible.
Also, it’s leftover from eating the blossoms, which are not so bland.
Peace,
mangeorge
Chayote squash is commonly grown in Mexico and Central America. In El Salvador, where my family is from, it’s called “guisquil.” (I think that’s how you spell it, there’s a umlaut over the first u so you know you’re supposed to pronounce it.) My mom puts it in soups along with carrots and potatoes, and sometimes she’ll just boil it and eat it with salt when she wants to eat vegetables - nobody else will eat it that way. 
She also slices it up, puts some chopped ranchero cheese, tomato and onion filling between two slices, dips the resulting construct (not sure whether to call it a patty or sandwich) in egg batter, and fries it. It’s a little like chiles rellenos, only with squash. I’ve never tried to eat it raw, sounds kinda gross to me. (puking smilie)
For the last 10 or so years i have been working on my cookbook:
101 ways to cook a choko (thats the name for the item here in Oz)
t.b.c
Mexican here. Never liked it, probably never will.
My mother had the nasty habit to mix it with a potato salad in a way that you couldn’t visually distinguish the potato from the chayote.
I loathed that salad.
But Mija, it’s good for you! (guessing at gender ;))
Gender: Dude.
And the mom in question is german.
Nice try, though.
Oops! Sorry, dude.
And, Mom feeds you chayote and doesn’t call you “baby” in spanish?
Goodness!
My favourite way of cooking chokos is with quince:
For every quince have 2 or three chokos
Slice chokos and place in bottom of a baking dish/casserole
Cut up the quinces and place over the top of the chokos
Sprinkle liberally (up to 1 cup) with brown sugar and add a dash of orange juice
bake in a very slow oven (125-150 degrees C) for 3 or 4 hours
The end result is a wonderful burgundy colour and no one would have any idea that it wasn’t all quince.
Them’s the breaks! (or should that be brakes?)
She’d probably say “Mein Schatz” or something akin to that.
[/hijack]