Pumpkin positivity
A recipe for Warm roasted squash salad
Pumpkins get an unfairly bad rap. Aspiring princesses understandably select gilded carriages over pumpkins as a superior means of travel, but produce as transportation is never reliable, and, as children everywhere know, at midnight turns back into a vegetable. As, in my experience, certain gussied-up personages can deteriorate into rats.
Worse, pumpkins get carved up into ghoulish candlelit grotesqueries to frighten small children out of their wits. Why would you want to expose a child to that?
Pumpkin patches are incorrectly named. ‘Pumpkin’ is not a botanical description. A pumpkin is a winter squash, the mature fruit of certain species in the genus Cucurbita. Whatever. It’s a sunset glory in the vegetable plot. From globes of Hermès orange to pure white pattipans, squashes are supremely elegant.
If properly stored in a chilly and dark place high above the reach of greedy vermin, they will keep over the winter. And a single one will offer several meals for very little money.
They are all members of the curcubitas fruit family - fruit because they contain seeds and they flower, so gourds are not included. It stretches from cucumbers and courgettes/zucchini and to Acorn, Delicata, Carnival, Kabocha, Turban squashes and many, many more beautifully designed summer and winter croppers which can weigh as little as 500g/1 lb and as much as 450kg/1,000lbs.
Seeds from the wider squash family dating as far back as 7000 to 5500 BC have been found in Mexico. But it was Native Americans of the nation to the north who better appreciated their value. No-one needs reminding that in their generosity, they offered them to the incoming Puritans who thanked them for the gift and for the turkey with which it paired so deliciously by massacring them or herding them off their long-held traditional hunting grounds into the barren wilderness, actions not much referred to on the last Thursday in November.
15 million pumpkins are grown in the UK for Hallowe’en. In the USA, the pumpkin market is worth around $1.34 billion. They are grown not just for Hallowe’en and Thanksgiving but have a place as a popular food, with 6.44 pounds per person eaten in 2020. Not the UK experience. Brits might consider the waste of doing nothing with those 15 million pumpkins other than stick a candle in them. After all, a cup of cooked pumpkin provides more than 200 percent of the recommended daily intake of vitamin A, 20 percent of the recommended vitamin C, and more potassium than a banana. Even the leaves of pumpkins can be cooked and eaten.
Most of the best pumpkins recipes come from the US. There are, though, mouthwatering ways to curry and spice the pumpkin, introduced as it was into India by Portuguese explorers. And with Middle Eastern recipes so de rigueur right now, pumpkins have been annexed by hip restaurateurs and sprinkled with the ubiquitous pomegranate seeds, nuts, za’atar and sumac, that sour spice made from the deep red, dried and ground flowers of the sumac plant. (If making your own sumac, don’t confuse it with the poisonous sumac tree identified by its clusters of downward-hanging white or pale green berries. Look for the upward-facing red berries of the harmless variety.)
It was Irish immigrants who introduced the tradition of carving pumpkins into Jack O'Lanterns to America. Back in Ireland where pumpkins didn’t exist, on All Hallows’ Eve, Jack O’Lanterns were carved from turnips, and embers placed in them to ward off evil spirits.
According to legend, the original Jack was one Stingy Jack, a miserable old drunk who took pleasure in playing tricks on family and friends - in fact, on everyone including the Devil himself.
One day, he hoodwinked the Devil into climbing up an apple tree. Once the Devil was aloft, Stingy Jack set crosses round the trunk of the tree. Unable to touch a cross, the Devil was stuck in the tree until Stingy Jack made him promise him not to snatch his soul when he died. Once the devil had delivered the promise, Stingy Jack removed the crosses, and the Devil clambered down.
When eventually Jack died, he showed up at the pearly gates of Heaven. Saint Peter informed him that as a mean and cruel individual who had led such a sadistic, worthless life he would not be allowed to enter, so cast him down to Hell and the Devil. But the Devil kept his promise not to allow him to enter Hell, so Jack had nowhere to go. All he could do was wander forever in the dark Netherworld between Heaven and Hell. How, he whimpered at the Devil, could he find his way about as there was no light? The Devil tossed him an ember from the flames of Hell. Luckily, Jack had a turnip with him. (Indeed, it must be a challenge to know what best to pack when about to meet Saint Peter.) He hollowed it out and placed the ember inside. From that day forward, ‘Jack O'Lantern’ roamed the earth without a resting place, lighting his way as he went about.
Anyone who imagines the only American way to eat pumpkin is as the mushy excuse of a Thanksgiving pie, bland but for its inordinate quantities of ground cinnamon and sugar (I say this with the freedom of someone who’s borne reams of invective from American friends against the British mince pie), doesn’t know Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa. She’s an American TV chef not familiar on the UK side of the Atlantic, much to our loss, who does excellent things with pumpkin and squash - and pretty much everything else. This recipe is a variation of hers for butternut squash. But you can happily use pumpkin or other squash, so long as you pick a variety that remains firm in shape when cooked.
Serves 4
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
salt and freshly ground black pepper
700g/1½ lbs squash (butternut is reliably form-keeping), peeled and diced into 3-4cm cubes
175ml/9 tablespoons UK apple juice or US apple cider
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons shallots, finely minced
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
120ml/1¼ tablespoons olive oil
115g/4 oz arugula/roquette or 4 large handfuls
60g/2 oz walnut halves, toasted
6 slices Parma Ham ripped into wide strips (optional)
175g/6 ½ oz goats cheese (optional)
Preheat oven 200C/395F.
In a bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons olive oil and maple syrup. Season. Add the squash and toss thoroughly to coat. Place in a roasting pan and roast for 15-20 minutes or until tender, turning once.
Combine apple juice/cider, vinegar and shallots in a small non-reactive pan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cook for 6 to 8 minutes until liquid is reduced to 4-5 tablespoons. Off heat, whisk in mustard and olive oil. Season to taste.
Place arugula/roquette in a large salad bowl. Add walnuts and roasted squash. Spoon over the salad only enough vinaigrette to moisten and toss lightly. Tuck in ham here and there and roughly crumble over cheese if using either. Serve while still warm.
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