Squash: A Favorite Winter Food
By Mary Emma Allen
One of the foods often associated with holiday and winter meals is winter squash in its many varieties. Holiday dinners, to many people, aren’t complete unless there is squash whether in pie, casserole, baked in the peel, fried, mashed with butter and a dash of nutmeg or cinnamon, or topped with marshmallows.
This Native Americans apparently first used this food found growing wild and called it “askutasquash.” The early pioneers learned to use and prepare it from the natives living in the western hemisphere.
Many Varieties of Squash
There are two main types of squash – summer and winter. They differ in shape, color, and size. The summer squash doesn’t keep so well unless frozen or canned, so is used a great deal for summer and fall meals. The type we call “winter” squash will save in its peel longer if kept cool. This was a vegetable the pioneers kept throughout the winter in their root cellars, in the days before refrigeration.
*The acorn squash is one of the most popular. As it’s name implies, it’s acorn shaped with a dark green shell, very hard and widely ribbed. The flesh is pale orange with a large seed cavity. This has always been one of my favorites.
*The butternut squash is cylindrical with a bulblike base. The smooth, hard skin is light brown or dark yellow. This squash can grow to be 9 to 12 inches long with a bulb often 5 inches in diameter.
*The Hubbard squash is globe-shaped with a thick tapered neck. It grows to be 9 to 12 inches in diameter. The skin is hard and ridged. The color varies between blue-gray, red-orange, or bronze-gold. The orange-colored flesh has a sweet taste.
The buttercup squash is turban-like at the bottom end. The skin is hard and dark green with orange flesh. Sometimes the exterior has faint gray stripes with gray turban.
Squash Recipes
To my mom, my aunts, and mother-in-law, winter holiday meals weren’t complete unless we had a bowl of mashed squash along with the mashed potatoes. They served this for other meals, but I recall that a bowl of squash generally graced the table on holidays. The traditional community turkey dinner our church, when I was a child, always had mashed squash on the menu.
In New York State, where I grew up, we didn’t use the squash so much for pie, and I don’t know why. However, in New Hampshire, my mother-in-law and an aunt who lived here often substituted squash for pumpkin in a pie.
I first tasted at a friend’s home, mashed squash topped with marshmallows and baked. The marshmallows softened and browned. I made this for my family and mother soon began preparing it this way, too.
SCALLOPED HUBBARD SQUASH – Cook 1 chopped green pepper and 1 chopped medium onion in 3 tablespoons butter until tender. Add 3 ½ cups mashed cooked Hubbard squash. Season mixture to taste with salt and pepper.
Place in shallow baking dish and sprinkle with ½ cup crushed corn flakes or dried bread crumbs. Bake at 400 degrees F. for about 30 minutes.
FRIED ACORN SQUASH – Cut a medium acorn squash into quarters and pare it. Remove the seeds. Then cut into thin slices and sprinkle with salt, pepper, and brown sugar. Drop the squash into hot fat at 425 degrees F. and cook the slices for about 8 minutes or until they are tender and slightly browned.
For variation, dip into beaten egg and then into flour before frying. You may want to deep-fry some apple slices to serve with the squash. You also can fry the squash and apple slices in a skillet instead of deep-frying.
©2006 Mary Emma Allen
About The Author:
Mary Emma Allen combines genealogy, scrapbooking, travel and cooking research.. She also teaches classes on family history, scrapbooking, and travel writing. Visit her web site: here
or email her at me.allen@juno.com.
