The zucchini R package was created for experiments in data squashing. The name 'zucchini' was selected because 'squash' is the name of an existing R package. Data squashing is a method pioneered by DuMouchel et al in 1999 [1]. The aim of data squashing is to substitute a large data set with a much smaller pseudo-data set, such that a statistical model (i.e., one described a likelihood function) fitted using the pseudo-data is nearly identical to the same model fitted using the original data set. Thus, the methodology is useful in situations where model fitting is difficult using the original data, due to their size, or in situations where the data contain proprietary or protected information. The methodology appears to have been largely neglected since 2002.
[1] W. DuMouchel, C. Volinsky, T. Johnson, C. Cortes, and D. Pregibon: Squashing flat files flatter. In Proceedings of the Fifth ACM Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, pages 6–15, 1999.