[Sca-cooks] squash recipes

[Decker, Terry D.]

> 1. Squash is a New World vegetable; while it is possible that there
> are period recipes for it, I don't know of any. Turkey is a New World
> animal; I believe there is good evidence that turkeys were being
> eaten in Europe before 1600, but I don't know if there are surviving
> recipes for them or not.

Turkey was also used to describe the guinea fowl which is from Africa.
However, Rumpolt has a nice woodcut of the North American turkey in his
cookbook and, IIRC, we have previously discussed his recipes for them.

While I know of no recipes for squash, squash appears in Vincenzo Campi's
The Fruit Seller (1580) suggesting that squash was commonly for sale around
Milan in the late 16th Century.  It may be that no specific recipes for
squash exist, because they served as a replacement for gourds.

>
> 2. There are, however, old world gourds which are reasonably similar,
> and for which there are period recipes. You may be able to find the
> old world gourds (Lageneria sicereia (sp?)--the white flowered gourd)
> in a chinese grocery store, since they are still used in Chinese
> cooking. I think they are sometimes called "Opo" gourds.
> --
> David/Cariadoc

Lagenaria siceraria (I checked the quick ref to make sure, since I have a
propensity for mis-remembering taxonomic names).

They also appear as bottle or calabash gourds.  The latter occasionally get
confused with the fruit of the calabash tree.

Bear