Literal translation
to embrace like pumpkins
Meaning
to embrace warmly, with emotion
Explanation
Embracing warmly, with emotion. The squash, a common and cheap vegetable in Provence, serves as a symbol of foolishness : calling someone « Que cougourdo ! » means calling them an idiot, and béure à la cougourdo, drinking from the squash, means being fooled. Embracing like squashes thus first suggests a rather silly embrace. But the squash was also the emblem of Provençal democrats during the revolutions of 1789 and 1830, a symbol of poverty and of the common people against the nobility, which gives the expression a second sense : embracing fraternally, with enthusiasm. Frédéric Mistral in fact translated it as embracing like the poor.