Yes you can eat them, I never have but check out this pickled gourd:

Here is the source of the picture

I would like to know which of my mystery squash is gourd vs squash. This is round, yellow/green stripe and size of small melon. I think it's a volunteer in the garden. Or.... which gourds are absolutely unedible?

I hope you don't mind but I sould suggest you shrink down the size of the pics posted, as they take forever to download. You could use any Adobe or a Digital camera software. Just cut the size either by % or pixels. First by 50%, take a look and if it is not bad looking, try another 50%. The pic reduced in size will be just as great. And thank you so much for listing your post. I have the Birds nest and they are small. I would love to have the receipe for cooking it.

Thanks.

All Lagenaria siceraria are edible, but like everything else some are better eating than others. Bottle gourds are widely cultivated as edibles in southeast Asia and there are many cultivars vailable. In North America, they have been mostly developed for crafts and little attention has been paid to breeding them for taste.