Pumpkins, squashes and gourds are everywhere this time of year. What’s the difference?
Well, all three belong to the same family, “cucurbita,” which has three subgroups. But that gets confusing and it’s more fun to think about their uses than figure out their complicated families!
Pumpkins have lightly-ribbed skin, usually are oblong, and have woody stems. Mostly we think of pumpkins as orange, but they also can be white or yellow or even mottled green. Orange, squat and rounder pumpkins are used for pies; we all know the big pumpkins make great jack-o-lanterns! Most pumpkins are grown for eating or for carving, but some are just ornamental.
For a fantastic series of photos on winning pumpkin carvings, click here. Our second-place winner in the Name the Turtle Contest, Barbara Randa, carved this one.
Pumpkins were an important part of the Native American diet centuries before the Pilgrims landed. Dried strips of pumpkin also were woven into mats.
The origin of pumpkin pie is thought to have occurred when the early settlers removed the seeds of a pumpkin, filled it with milk, spices and honey, and then baked it in the hot ashes of a dying fire. (That sounds a little far-fetched to me, but it makes a nice story.)
Squash, not pumpkin, is used in most of today’s store-bought “pumpkin” pie and in canned “pumpkin.” And squash is just not the same taste. Try to find someone who still makes pies from real pumpkins — the taste is wonderful!
Squash that have fairly thick, inedible skins are winter squash, second cousins to the pumpkin. They can be many colors — orange, white, blue, yellow and green. Squash are very good to eat, especially mixed with a little maple syrup and nutmeg.
Many pumpkin-carving contests use huge squash, not true pumpkins, for carving.
Gourds are first cousins to pumpkins. They are grown not for food, but for their hard or colorful shells. One type of gourd is the source of luffa sponges, those great bathtub companions!
In our Lost in a Maze Storybook Quilt, Zach spends more time than he would like with pumpkins. In this story, Zach spends a week at his aunt’s and uncle’s dairy farm, taking his new dog, Max, with him. Max is a very active Dalmatian who gets in all kinds of trouble chasing the barn cats. Zach runs after Max, trying to stop him. They both get lost in the corn maze and spend hours waiting to be found in the center of the maze, which is filled with pumpkins.
