Pumpkin
Although 99% of all pumpkins are sold for decoration,
those that escape a jack o’ lantern’s fate become the source of
culinary delight for a stalwart minority who eat them. Canned pie filling
doesn’t count. I’m talking about the pumpkin in its entirety, with
its intense orange flesh and nutty seeds rich in antioxidants, vitamins and the
flavor of fall.
At this time of
year, newspapers, magazines and internet sites are bursting with pumpkin
recipes. Pumpkin ravioli is a perennial favorite, along with roast pumpkin soup
and the afore-mentioned pie. They all sound scrumptious to me, but the trouble
is knowing what pumpkin to use. Most of the ninety-nice percent are decorative
for a reason: jack o’ lantern pumpkins are bred for size and
staying-power, and tend to be fibrous, watery and bland. I’ve heard of
some varieties that are known for good eating (like sugar pumpkins and pie
pumpkins) but I certainly couldn’t pick one out in a line up.
My ignorance on the matter was evident
in dinner last night. Jacob and I hosted a little pumpkin carving
soirée, and while I was scraping out the innards of my jack o’
lantern to be, I was suddenly inspired to eat its diminutive friend, which I had
bought last week to decorate the dining room table. It was smooth-skinned and
small – five or six inches in diameter – and seemingly a good
candidate for cooking. The idea got me excited – I had a turkey roasting
away while we carved, and pumpkin would be the perfect accompaniment. I washed
it and hollowed it out, salted the cavity, stuffed it with stuffing, and tucked
it into a corner of the oven next to the bird. I then went back to my pumpkin
carving, looking forward to presenting my artful autumn
menu.
Well, as they say, even the best
laid plans can go awry. The turkey was overdone in the worst way. The stuffed
pumpkin, despite its small size, took about an hour to roast, and wasn’t
ready until we were almost finished choking down the bone-dry bird. I brought
it to the table anyway because it looked simply stunning. The bright-orange
skin had darkened and deepened into a brown the color of apple cider, and the
shriveled, twisted stem gave it great Halloween character. We each tried a
wedge, complete with some of the stuffing that had baked inside. The stuffing
was delicious, having taken on a faint and pleasant pumpkin flavor. The
pumpkin, however, was sadly lacking. It had some good squashy flavor, but erred
heavily on the bland and stringy side. I had an abrupt sense of regret for lost
potential. With the right pumpkin, this dish would have been a
triumph.
Fortunately, the night wasn’t a total
loss. Our jack o’ lanterns were a smashing success, and Jacob proclaimed
them the best we had ever carved.
As an
aside, did you know that pumpkins were not the original jack o’ lanterns?
As Irish legend has it, there once was an evil and miserly man known as Stingy
Jack. He was one for playing nasty tricks on people. One day, he tricked the
devil, trapping him in an apple tree by carving a cross on its trunk. He made a
deal with the devil that he would let him out of the tree if the devil promised
not to take his soul when he died. The devil agreed. Years later, when Stingy
Jack died, he was rejected from heaven for all his malicious deeds. The devil,
bound by their agreement, could not accept his soul into Hell, and cast Jack out
into the night with a burning ember to help him light his way. Jack, doomed for
all eternity to walk the earth, placed the coal in a carved out turnip and went
around spooking people in the night time. His ghost became known as “Jack
of the Lantern.” People in Ireland and Scotland began to make their own
jack-o-lanterns by carving scary faces in turnips and potatoes to scare-off Jack
and other ghostly riff raff. It wasn’t until Irish immigrants came
to America that they discovered that pumpkins made the ultimate jack o’
lantern.
Posted: Fri - October 29, 2004 at 04:07 PM