SC - Pumpkins and such...

[Angie Malone]

This really isn't any sort of advice about pumpkins/squash.  It's just an
anecdotal thing I know about pumpkins/squash.

When I was 10 years old I planted 'jack-o-lantern' pumpkins and zucchini
squash, two of my favorite foods.  I didn't know anything about gardening
and my parents weren't paying attention to what I was doing so I ended up
with all jack-o-lantern pumpkins that some had skins that looked more like
zucchini's, ie...green skin that didn't turn fully orange even after the
frost hit them and some looked like regular jack-o-lanterns. We called them
zuchinikins. 

My Mom ended up making pumpkin pie with most of them and I gave some away.
Unfortunately I don't remember what the inside looked like but I remember
that my mom said the flesh was a lot easier to work with for the pies.  She
used to boil the pumpkin and then run it through this sieve/colander sort
of thing.  It was round and had a hand crank that you turned and then the
pumpkin went through and all the fibery stuff stayed in the top.  Years
later she used her kitchen aid or squeezo to do the pumpkins.

One other thing about the pumpkin/squash discussion.

For all the years that I have been on this earth my family has made pumpkin
pie with only a pumpkin called a milk pumpkin.  Well it's called a milk
pumpkin where I grew up in NJ.  Here in NY they call them a cheese squash,
or a cheese pumpkins or an umbrella squash.  They look sort of like a
Cinderella pumpkin except they are a very light tan almost flesh color.
Very flat and ribbed.  It is a very old heirloom squash/pumpkin and as far
as I know it is very hard to find seeds for it.  All the 'commercial'
places in NJ and Pine Island NY use pumpkins from previous years.  When we
took it to Cornell and had them analyze it they said it was a Connecticut
field pumpkin, which we now know isn't true.  If you look at a picture of a
Connecticut field pumpkin it is a round pumpkin that looks very much like a
jack-o-lantern. 

Someone recommended an heirloom seed company, which I can't remember the
name right now, it wasn't Pine Tree, or Seeds of Change, and it wasn't seed
savers.  It was something Creek I think, that had quite a few
pumpkin/squash that sounded exactly like what a milk pumpkin looks like.
Seeds of Change had two squashes that sounded like what a milk pumpkin
looks like.  One description is a cheese box shaped blah...blah...  Which I
am assuming is why they call it a cheese squash/pumpkin.  For those that
are curious a cheese box I was told is a box that a wheel of cheese will
fit it.  

    Angeline