Sautéed Loofah

So we're perusing the menu at one of our favourite restaurants when I stumble across this:

Sautéed loofah with salty meat & dried fish

My first thought? Damn.

Just .... damn.

Later that evening, with the vision of a shower sponge simmering in a saucepan persisting in my mind, I checked the definition of loofah; I just knew there had to be more to the word than met the eye.

It turns out a loofah is a gourd:

1. Also called dishcloth gourd, rag gourd.
a. any of several tropical vines of the genus Luffa, of the gourd family, bearing large, elongated fruit.
b. the fruit of such a vine.

2. Also called vegetable sponge. The dried, fibrous interior of this fruit, used as a sponge.

You learn something new every day. I never knew the word came from an actual plant; I always thought it was made up by some marketing guru to express the sound of exfoliation.

But even with this new information, I still can't get the image of a bath product browned in butter out of my head.

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