Here Be Squash: The Long Culinary History of Pumpkins

Pumpkins have come a long way since then, as Indigenous American communities carefully adapted the wild pumpkin into successively bigger and better-tasting varieties. These weren't all the bright orange we're familiar with: white, green and yellow varieties were also common, mixed in with squashes (a genetically identical relation).

In pre-colonial America, there were a host of different ways to prepare the vegetable, as pumpkin historian Cindy Ott explains. She wrote that Indigenous communities ate pumpkins in soups, roasted them on embers, made them into sauces and baked them into a "bread".

Pumpkins and squash were commonly grown and eaten with maize and beans; a combination sometimes called the "three sisters".

Serin Quinn, salon.com

October 28, 2024