A Pumpkin In Your Pantry
Cooking with fresh pumpkin is easy. And as for taste, freshness adds a whole new depth of flavor.
 
Text by Marge Perry, Recipes by Jim Fobel - Cooking Light, October 1997

I have a confession to make: I've always cooked with canned pumpkin, mostly because it's easy, it's fast, and just as nutritious as fresh. But a recent foray into the pumpkin patch showed me just how much I've been missing. I'd never tried a recipe that called for pumpkin in any form other than puréed. Then I made my annual jack-'o-lantern trip to the farm stand with my children, and I was intrigued with the bins brimming with Cheese pumpkins. They were a creamy orange color, small, and surprisingly uniform in shape. To me, they were more reminiscent of the numerous varieties of winter squash than they were of typical Halloween pumpkins. I decided to take one home and experiment. I did research in a few cookbooks but came up with meager findings. All the recipes called for puréed pumpkin; for this, I'd be likely to start out with canned rather than fresh. I looked at my pumpkin again and decided to treat it like any other squash. But I'm basically lazy, and it looked too hard to peel. Instead, I cut the pumpkin into wedges, sprinkled them with a dash of nutmeg, cinnamon, and brown sugar, stuck them on a baking sheet, and cooked them in a 400°F oven for 45 minutes. That did it.

I was hooked, and so were my children. This creamy, sweet fruit was a breeze to prepare and absolutely delicious. I was decided to see if cubed pumpkin would work as part of roasted fall-vegetable medley, in which I usually include cubed butternut squash. This time, I used the familiar Halloween variety: I cut the pumpkin into pieces an used a big, sharp knife to cut off the skin. I tossed the raw cubes with the vegetables, salt, pepper, a dash of olive oil, and a sprinkling of vermouth, then roasted the mixture in a 400°F oven until tender. Once again, the results were delicious, and the gorgeous, bright-orange pumpkin flesh added a splash of color - as well as a healthful dose of beta carotene - to one of my favorite fall dishes.

Since then, I've prepared it every way imaginable, including throwing the whole thing, stem and all, in the oven and baking it until tender. (Talk about the lazy approach!) Basically, I've learned that whole fresh pumpkin works just as well in recipes as winter squash, but pumpkin has a mildly distinctive and appealing flavor. Don't get me wrong: I wouldn't give up canned any other time of the year. But for wonderful flavor and beautiful color in the fall, I now give fresh pumpkin first consideration.

WHAT'S WHAT IN THE PUMPKIN PATCH

There are hundreds of varieties of pumpkin, some more readily available than others. A few phone calls to farmers' markets around the country yielded confusing results: Even if the purveyors know which pumpkin varieties they have, they often call the same ones by different names.

As it turns out, there are three basic types of pumpkin to look for. "Ma" Tice, whose family has been growing and selling pumpkins in Woodcliff Lakes, New Jersey, since 1808, and who, at age 94, has probably coked more pumpkins than most people, swears by the variety known as Milk or Cheese. These creamy, pale-orange pumpkins are squatty and flat-topped, and they're generally about twice as wide as they are tall. This variety is most commonly found in New England. Sugar pumpkins, which are bright orange and very round, weigh about 6 to 8 pounds. They yield a lot of flesh for their size and have an ideal flavor and texture for cooking. I had been under the mistaken impression that the pumpkins we use to make jack-o'-lanterns can't be used for cooking. But as long as these pumpkins are about 10 to 12 inches in diameter, they're fine to use. You don't however, get as much flesh out of them as you do with other varieties. They tend to have a bigger seed pocket and be somewhat more stringy than Milk or Sugar pumpkins. The bigger, older pumpkins sold for Halloween, often under the name of Connecticut Field or Big Tom, are best left for carving.

WHAT'S TO LOOK FOR

Unlike most fruit (and believe it or not, pumpkin is a fruit - it's part of the melon family), when you choose a pumpkin, look for a tough skin. Give it the fingernail test: If you can make a mark with gentle pressure from your nail, the pumpkin isn't ready for cooking.

One final note: No matter how proud your children are of the pumpkin they choose for their jack-o'-lantern, don't give in to the temptation to cook a carved pumpkin. The cut surface is an ideal breeding ground for bacteria.

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Marge Perry is a New Jersey-based food and nutrition write whose work appears regularly in Newsday, The Record, and on her weekly TV Segment. Contributing Editor Jim Fobel's latest cookbook is Jim Fobel's Casseroles.

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