What to do with pumpkin

Hilde G. Lee Daily Progress correspondent
Published: October 28, 2008

To paraphrase a famous poem, “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner”: Pumpkins, pumpkins as far as they can be seen — what do you do with ’em after Halloween?

That’s always a problem. The pumpkin flesh can, however, be used in pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup, pumpkin cookies and even a pumpkin casserole. I admit that I have only used the pumpkin flesh once. I prefer to take the easy route and use canned pumpkin in those recipes.

Pumpkins are even more American than apple pie. For centuries before the Europeans came to the Americas, pumpkins were one of the staple foods of the native Indians. Food historians believe that this vegetable, a member of the squash family, probably originated in Central America.

Seed of transportation

By the 1500s, pumpkins and other squashes were cultivated by the Indians from South America to North America. The earliest Indians (1000 to 300 B.C.), who were nomads, dried the pumpkin seeds and used them for food, as they were easy to carry.

As the Indians settled into villages they cultivated pumpkins and other squashes. Food historians say that squashes were the first of the Indian triad — corn, beans and squash — to be cultivated. The Indians boiled or baked their pumpkins. They baked a whole pumpkin by placing it in the ashes or embers of a dying fire. The flesh of the pumpkin was then moistened with animal fat, maple syrup or honey before eating.

The Indians also dried pumpkins by cutting them into rings and hanging them up to dry. The dried rings gave them a vegetable to use in the winter months. Dried pumpkin was also ground into meal and used the same as cornmeal to make breads and puddings.

Quite a discovery

The first pumpkins known to Europeans were discovered in about 1540 when scouts of Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado reported that melons (probably pumpkins) were growing in what is today the Southwest. In 1584 Jacques Cartier, the French explorer, reported that he had found big melons (squashes) in the St. Lawrence River region in upper New York state. The French phrase “gros melons” was translated as pompions (pumpkins).

In 17th-century New England, ripe pumpkins were sliced and diced and then put into a two- or three-gallon iron pot to be stewed in the fireplace for most of the day. Periodically more pieces of pumpkin were added to the pot as its contents boiled down. After cooking all day the mixture had the consistency of applesauce. A little butter, vinegar and ginger, if available, were added to the mix. This pumpkin puree was served as an accompaniment to fish or meat.

Some of this pumpkin

puree also was used by the settlers for pumpkin pies — strictly an American invention. Even though the English had long been making pastry for meat and fruit pies, and the Indians had been stewing pumpkins, it was the New England colonists who combined the pastry and pumpkin to create pumpkin pie. Food historians tell us that the first pumpkin pie was served at the third Thanksgiving meal celebrated by the Pilgrims.

To the mashed stewed pumpkin, the Pilgrims added milk, eggs, spices and molasses. The mixture was then poured into a pastry shell and baked until the filling was firm but creamy, and the piecrust crisp and golden. In preparing the pumpkin pie filling the New Englanders were following a basic English custard pie recipe of milk, eggs and sugar.

Lacking sugar, however, they used molasses. Molasses became such an important ingredient to pumpkin pies that on several occasions, New England towns put off their Thanksgiving celebration for a week or more while awaiting a shipment of molasses from the West Indies.

In the first genuine American cookbook, “American Cookery” by Amelia Simmons, published in 1796, there was a recipe for “pompkin pie.” Although the book was very small, only 46 pages, it did contain recipes for most of the American culinary inventions from that period.

In the mountainous regions of the East dried pumpkin was used as a substitute for molasses since pumpkin meat is naturally sweet. As the settlers moved westward they carried seeds for potatoes, beans, cabbage, squash and pumpkin.

Today pumpkins are associated with fall, Halloween and pumpkin-growing contests. In recent years pumpkins weighing more than 1,000 pounds have been grown in various parts of the country.

Pumpkin Soup is one way to use up the pumpkin flesh. For an easier soup use canned pumpkin. The soup is spiced with curry and nutmeg.

Curried Pumpkin Soup

2 tablespoons butter or margarine

8 ounces sliced fresh mushrooms

½ cup chopped onion

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon curry powder

3 cups chicken broth

2 cups canned pumpkin

1 tablespoon honey

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon pepper

1½ cups half and half

Melt the butter in a large saucepan; add the mushrooms and onion, and cook until tender, stirring often.

Stir in the flour and curry powder. Gradually add the chicken broth, and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture is thickened.

Stir in the pumpkin, honey, salt, nutmeg, and pepper. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in the half-and-half and cook, stirring constantly, until thoroughly heated. Serves six.