By ERIC C. RODENBERG
Antique Week Correspondent

NEW HARMONY, Ind. – It seemed only natural when the good people of New Harmony found themselves in something of a financial pickle they would turn to the Giant Utopian Zucchini.
For the 700 people who live in the small southeastern Indiana town there has long been an aural void.

The 85-year-old four-sided tower clock has been conspicuously silent for some time. And, for such a repair, the town’s coffers are empty.

“After nearly a century of chiming the hours, our old Seth Thomas clock tower in the heart of New Harmony, Ind. has fallen silent,” a townsperson said. “We miss its voice …

“The clock needs help. Lots of it – more than $16,000 to get it going again, and to train us to keep it ticking.”

It was in such a quandary that the town of New Harmony - the site of two 19th century utopian societies – looked to its Utopian Community Garden for inspiration. The garden at the outskirts of town, on land donated by a local farmer and tended by some 20 local New Harmonites, has been feeding several families throughout the summer.

And, there among the leaves, buds and garden detritus dwelt a possible solution - the Giant Utopian Zucchini.

In early September, the town’s solemnly-appointed “Zuke Keeper” put the Giant Utopian Zucchini (hereafter, GUZ) on eBay, announcing that all proceeds of the sale would go to the clock fund.
“We’ve already raised $7,000 – not bad for a town of 700 people,” the Zuke Keeper wrote on the eBay posting. “But we need more …
New Harmony was a Utopian community back in the 1800s and we still like to think of it that way (yeah, we laugh at ourselves too).”
The GUZ soon became a worldwide hit, with questions pouring in throughout the globe on size, shipping, origins, color, the inevitable “is this a reproduction?” and other good and nonsensical questions.
Even the Zuke Keeper demurred from any claims that the GUZ was anywhere near the world’s largest, even confessing that the vegetable is “longitudinally challenged.” (For the record, the zucchini is treated as a vegetable within culinary contexts; however, botanists remind us that the zuke is an immature fruit, being the swollen ovary of the female zucchini flower).

In any event, the GUZ is about the length of a Wiffle bat, about 18-inches long and as many inches in circumference. It is no where near the world’s record which, according to The Guinness Book of World Records, is a British zuke measuring 59.5 inches long, and weighing 64 pounds and 8 ounces.

But, no matter the GUZ – still accorded “gigantic” status by the standards of New Harmonites - rapidly became a “hot item” on eBay, scoring more than 16,000 hits. While luxuriating in the Utopian Garden, several of the local antique shops furnished the patch with several items, reportedly including bird’s-eye maple pieces, a fine mahogany table and more.

Before the final bid came, the Zuke Keeper and her helpers discovered that the GUZ could not be legally shipped; but, no problem, stipulations were added that the GUZ could be picked up in New Harmony or “caught and released” back to the wild.
Of course, the winner would be the recipient of several privileges – ceremonial and otherwise – in New Harmony.

On Sept. 7, at noon Pacific Daylight Time, the GUZ sold for $510.
The new owner, a New York City resident with family ties to New Harmony, announced that he would be sending a representative to pick up the zucchini.

In addition to the $510 that is going toward repairing the clock, the town raised more than $1,000 more during a weekend bake sale and “countdown party” for the eBay auction.

On the weekend Sept. 19, the official handing over of the GUZ will take place at New Harmony’s annual Kunstfest, a celebration of traditional German crafts and food. The GUZ will have its own booth at Kunstfest – the Zuke Booth – in which he will be “lying in state so that his well wishers and fans can pay their last respects,” according to Sally Roth, the town’s Zuke Keeper.

In addition, “a piece of him will be used in the baked goods for sale at the booth, so that everyone can enjoy a sample of his own DNA,” Roth says. “And we’ll be selling his cousins sliced and grilled at a ‘buck a bite.’”

The winner’s representative will also be feted, including among many honors, being a guest of the town ROMEOS (Retired Old Men Eating Out) at the Church Street Coffee House.

Donations for restoring the clock on the tower above the old Ribeyre Gym can be made by contacting giantzuke@yahoo.com or checks made out to RGRG (Ribeyre Gym Restoration Group), P.O. Box 220, New Harmony, IN  47631.

Published on Sept. 30, 2009