Just Cook It: The pumpkin
In last week’s column, we accepted the fall season with open arms. Even though fall officially started in September, there’s still something about the month of October that seems to make it feel official.
Last week we talked about quite a few fall seasonal ingredients, but here is one that we saved for this column. One ingredient that at this time of the year takes precedence over all of the other “fall” ingredients. As you probably already know, of course I’m talking about the undisputed king of fall – the pumpkin.
It’s pretty much a rule that you can’t celebrate fall without pumpkins. In fact, pumpkin has become so popular this time of year that we are even flavoring foods with the spice that we use to flavor pumpkin pie. Even that is driving people into a mad euphoric rage.
Allow me to state for the record that if an item is labeled to be “pumpkin spice” or “pumpkin pie spice” that’s exactly what it means. It doesn’t mean that there is necessarily any pumpkin in that particular food product — just the spice used to flavor pumpkin pie.
Pumpkin pie spice or pumpkin spice is typically made from a combination of ground cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice. This spice blend is delicious with pumpkin in general, in pumpkin pies, and apparently in lattes (I never personally understood that one) but the spice itself on a food label does not guarantee the presence of pumpkin.
Pumpkin itself has a uniquely distinctive yet somewhat neutral flavor. Pumpkin belongs to the squash family so it makes sense that it tastes much like a squash. The particular way you cook and season your pumpkin will determine it’s actual flavor profile for that specific dish.
Pumpkin really is a great ingredient, and I love a good pie just as much if not more than the next guy. However, when it seems like everything is made to taste like pumpkin pie we begin to associate that flavor with pumpkin itself and it’s simply not true.
In my “For Starters” column in tomorrows GO! Magazine, I will share a couple of new pumpkin recipes with you. One recipe is for a cocktail and one is for a savory preparation that goes against the grain of pumpkin dishes having to be sweet and seasoned like a pie. Make sure you check it out and try the recipes.
Pumpkin is much more than an ingredient that needs to be sweetened and spiced to be delicious. For the rest of this column, I would like to share some fun facts about the pumpkin that I have discovered.
I like fun facts, and I unearthed a lot of interesting ones about pumpkin when researching for this column. I’ll share some of my favorites with you here.
The first interesting fact I’d like to share is that even though we automatically think of orange when we think of pumpkins, they can also be yellow, white, green or red. In fact, if you use Libby’s canned pumpkin to make your pies (I do), you are using a pumpkin that actually has a white skin and orange flesh.
This brings me to a quick topic I’d like to touch on before moving to the next fact. There is nothing wrong with using canned pumpkin as long as the ingredient list reads: Ingredients: pumpkin.
For the most part, I’m all for fresh over canned foods; however, there are certain items such as pumpkin that are just more convenient to use the canned variety. I can tell you from firsthand experience that using canned pumpkin does not affect the quality of most dishes and it is much easier to open a can than it is to seed and roast whole pumpkins. As long as it doesn’t diminish the integrity of the ingredient or quality of the final dish I’m all for convenience.
The next fun fact that I found was that scientifically speaking, pumpkins are actually a fruit. In fact, they are botanically a berry. The botanical definition of a berry is a fleshy fruit produced from a single flower and containing one ovary. For culinary purposes we treat pumpkins like a vegetable since they are part of the same family as cucumbers, melons, squash, and gourds.
Another fun fact – more than 1 billion pounds of pumpkin are produced in the United States every year. That’s both surprising and not so surprising at the same time. It’s surprising because billion with a “b” is an extremely large number (a thousand millions). It’s not so surprising considering the many uses for pumpkin and the large number of pies my family is capable of eating each year, and we’re just one family.
I’ll leave you with this fun fact – the tradition of the jack-o’-lantern is believed to have originated in Ireland where they used to carve faces into turnip, beet, and other root vegetables as part of the Gaelic festival Samhain.
When Irish immigrants came to America and discovered pumpkins, a new tradition was born. This year instead of carving pumpkins, carve turnips with your family and celebrate the traditional way.
Of course I’m joking. I love carving pumpkins — well, actually I love roasting and eating pumpkin seeds, which usually occurs from carving pumpkins. I like to toss my pumpkin seeds with melted butter and Cajun seasoning before roasting, but I also enjoy them the more traditional way as well.
Mario Porreca of Belle Vernon is a food personality, entrepreneur, author, and the host of Just Cook It Radio on WMBS Radio 590 AM. He can be reached via his website at: www.MarioPorreca.com. Twitter: @MarioPorreca