Little gems, that's what they are. And Suzanne Zipperer thinks more people ought to be able to enjoy them.

Zipperer met up with her first gem squash in Zimbabwe, where she lived from 1980 to 1987.

"I was traveling in Africa and I ran out of money," she explained, telling a common tale.

It just so happened that Zimbabwe was a new country, having gained independence from the United Kingdom just a few months before she showed up in November. With her associate degree in horticulture, she was hired to teach agriculture at a boarding school to children who were former refugees.

The school raised chickens and had a garden, and that's where she was introduced to gem squash, known botanically as cucurbita pepo.

"Here, we eat broccoli," Zipperer said. "There, they eat gem squash."

Zipperer returned home to Milwaukee in 1987 and began working as a state employee. She retired this April as a communications specialist with the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare.

She lives now on a family farm near Manitowoc homesteaded by her great-grandparents in the 1880s, a farm she named Viola's Kitchen Garden after her grandmother.

And there, she grows gem squash.

For last year's test crop, she bought seeds from a Michigan farmer whose name she found on the Internet. For this year's planting, she got permission from the USDA to import seeds from South Africa. She has not seen seeds for gem squash in any seed catalog, and she knows of no one else in Wisconsin growing them.

What makes them so special?

Their size, for starters. Each squash is a single serving.

"I don't want a big acorn squash," Zipperer said, noting that most squash varieties are even larger. "I don't want to eat squash five times a week. I want it once a week."

Each gem squash plant produces squash about the size of a baseball, with light green variegated skin, as well as some solid dark green squash that can grow to the size of an elongated softball. Zipperer thinks the smaller squash in general are more flavorful.

The texture of the cooked squash is similar to spaghetti squash, but with less-defined strands — and Zipperer thinks the gem squash taste better.

She doesn't know why they're not grown commercially here. She did note that with our wet weather, the plants are vulnerable to powdery mildew, something she's battling now in her organic field. Though the plants keep producing even with the mildew, over time it can kill them.

But the season is long; Healthy plants produce squash from mid-July until frost, making them both a summer and winter squash. Like winter squash, gem squash are good keepers that don't have to be refrigerated, Zipperer said.

She has 60 plants now and will be expanding next year. In addition to growing squash for sale, she hopes to develop seeds to sell to other farmers, selecting plants for mildew resistance.

Alas, if you want to try gem squash yourself, you'll have to hunt them down. A farmer friend (Happy Destiny Farm) sells Zipperer's squash at two Milwaukee-area farmers markets: Vliet Street Community Green Market at 44th and Vliet in Washington Park and East Side Green Market in the Beans & Barley parking lot, 1901 E. North Ave. In addition, Braise RSA has been sharing samples with area restaurants, so they might show up soon on menus.

In the Fox Valley area, they're sold at Trust Local Foods in Appleton.

Zipperer's goal is not just to sell squash. She and her three sisters inherited this farm, and they've agreed that they don't want to sell.

She figured, "the best way to keep the next generation from selling it is to keep it as a productive farm."

Nancy J. Stohs is food editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Email her at nstohs@journalsentinel.com and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

About Nancy Stohs

 Nancy J. Stohs is the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's award-winning food editor.

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