Rethinking Pumpkins

There was a time when I thought those orange orbs that appeared around Halloween and disappeared by Thanksgiving were inedible; mere decorations to have a hole cut in the top, seeds scooped out and toothy grins with triangle eyes to be carved before adding a lit candle and sitting on the front porch for trick-or-treat night. The inner lids would scorch scenting the air with cooked squash as we opened the front door to hand out candy after having made our own rounds in the neighborhood. In the coming days if the weather was warm, the face would sink inward with black fuzzy mold growing out of the eyeballs before the whole thing collapsed into a pile of mush. During a cool fall, the jack-o-lanterns might make it until Thanksgiving.Like learning that that the tooth fairy isn’t real, coming to grips with where pumpkin pie came from left me asking myself which do I like more: fall décor or pie?That’s a no-brainer.Despite oodles of shapes, sizes and colors of winter squash, none are more ubiquitous than Cucurbita pepo, the round, slightly ribbed fruit with smooth orange skin and orange flesh. Yes, technically pumpkins are fruits. Having originated in Mexico, pumpkins are now grown on all continents except Antarctica. At the New England Giant Pumpkin weigh-off last year, a new American record was set with the winner from New Hampshire tipping the scales at 2,528 pounds. However, the world record continues to be held by a 2,624-pound squash grown in Belgium in 2016. That’s a lot of pie.Pumpkins deliver more than brilliant fall colors as summer cedes most of her rainbow. They are mother nature’s last push of fuel before winter shuts down the growing season. Considered a superfood, pumpkins are high in fiber, low in calories, rich in vitamins, particularly vitamin A, and loaded with antioxidants.In addition to the flesh, pumpkin seeds, known as pepitas, are edible. Pepitas can be eaten raw or roasted. However, don’t try this at home unless you are using the pumpkin variety that produces shell-less seeds which is what you get when purchasing pepitas.As I have learned over the years of raising livestock, it’s not only we humans who love to eat pumpkins. A flock of chickens or turkeys will peck a broken-open squash completely clean leaving only the tough outer rind. Cattle tend to lick the soft flesh down as far as they can as their mouths are not as adept at chewing as horses. Sheep and goats will nibble them to nothing in no time. But pigs, they are the real hogs when it comes to pumpkins. Once when a local business dropped off a giant pumpkin used as a decoration, the pigs literally crawled through a large crack caused by rolling it off the truck and took a few days to eat their way out from the inside!Over the years I’ve cooked pumpkins in assorted ways—soups, custards, breads, roasted, mashed and yes, in pies. Recently I cooked up a small pumpkin for dinner from the Spiral Path Farm CSA share in a New York Times Food recipe that caught my eye because I had all the ingredients on hand, and it looked easy and delicious. (It was!)These days my fall decorations no longer include carved pumpkins as I prefer to keep them intact for future eating.