SC - period pumpkin recipes?

[david friedman]

In a message dated 3/1/00 9:30:29 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
lilinah at earthlink.net writes:

<< 
 So, Medieval gardeners, how difficult and how fussy are these Italian 
 gourds? I'm really clueless with plants. It they can't say they're 
 hungry, or meow, or something, i often forget to "feed" them. I'm in 
 NoCal (not far from Lord Cariadoc, but definitely a different 
 micro-climate - not so hot, more cloud-cover. The Pinetree page says 
 55 days, i assume (in my gross ignorance) that it's more or less how 
 long they take to grow until edible...
  >>
    I only grew these one year, and they were certainly easy enough! Problem 
was, they seem to be next-of-kin to kudzu, and completely took over the long 
net trellis I was growing various squashes on................. And they do 
get very large indeed if not picked! Think twisty baseball bats, 
here............ ;-) They are much tastier small, though--I didn't much care 
for the flavor of the large ones. These things are a LOT denser than US 
squashes, though, which you have to adjust to when eating. They won't disolve 
to mush when stewed, for instance, but remain separate chunks.
    Bottom line--make sure you have plenty of space, and some kind of trellis 
if possible. Pick them very young, then play all you like! Also, around here 
they followed the pattern of many other veggies and stopped bearing in the 
hottest part of the summer. They started up again around mid-September, but 
if I'd intended to serve them at the feast I was cooking that year I'd have 
been out of luck...........

        Ldy Diana, who wishes her folks still had a garden to play 
in...................