Stuffed Vegetable

I have often wondered who was the first person to invent stuffed vegetables.  It sort of got out of control when some unknown cook began stuffing and wrapping whatever was handy.People in the Middle East invented a coring tool to core the zucchini and eggplant.  They picked grape leaves off the vines and wrapped them around rice and meat.  They even used cabbage as wrapper, probably copied from a similar Norwegian dish.  If something could be cored, then it could be stuffed.  If something could be wrapped, then it was wrapped.Recently, when I was spending a Saturday morning carving the core out of a couple dozen small, gray zucchini, I thought of my sister, who is a medical doctor in Syria, an endocrinologist by specialty.  She has no interest in cooking, but she's obsessed with cleaning houses-hers, mine, our parents-she doesn't care.  When my parents came to visit me a couple years ago, my sister was obliged to prepare a meal for my brothers left behind in Syria.  I have no idea way, but she decided to make stuffed zucchini for them.  She cored about 30 zucchini for stuffing, thinking they would be sufficient for the next week.  It was painful for her to do the kind of work she detested doing, but she felt a sense of accomplishment when she finished cooking them.  Turning the fire off under the pot, she went to her clinic for couple of hours.  Upon her return, she found that our two brothers had eaten all 30 stuffed zucchini, leaving her not even one for herself.  She told me that she cried for a full hour.  That was her last effort at fancy cooking. She has since refused to even to boil an egg.Although the Moors had taught the Spanish how to stuff vegetables when they conquered them a few centuries ago, the Spanish were too smart to undergo the kind of obsessive work required to core small zucchini.  So when Columbus brought back to Spain sweet peppers from the new world, their national dish became stuffed sweet peppers, which are much easier to prepare because one only needs to pull out the seeds.  There is no need to core a pepper.Stuffed grape leaves are more known around the world because they are offered in Greek, Turkish and Eastern Mediterranean restaurants.  Grape leaves are somewhat easy, and because of my sister's pain, I've found a new way to stuff zucchini.  I cut them in half lengthwise before coring and stuffing them.