SC - Sweet Spinach Tart

[Decker, Terry D.]

At 8:56 AM -0400 9/20/00, Jenne Heise wrote:
>  > At 11:16 PM -0700 9/19/00, Susan Browning wrote:
>>  >Does anybody know of any recipes for pumkin (old world) in period?
>>  There are several recipes in the Miscellany that use gourds, and are
>>  from before Columbus. I don't remember any of them using gourds
>>  called "pumpkins" or any variant.
>
>True. But as far as can be determined, I believe this list came to
>conclusion that all gourds in period were varietals of the same plant,
>only in different shapes and sizes...


I don't think we know that. L. sicereia is a plausible candidate for 
the old world gourd recipes, but that doesn't imply that there were 
not any others.

In any case, we don't know, or at least I don't, whether the early 
variants of "pumpkin" referred to a gourd. It might have been 
something else whose size and shape was sufficiently similar to what 
we call a pumpkin for the name to have been transferred, such as some 
kind of melon.
- -- 
David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
ddfr at best.com
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/