[Sca-cooks] Winter Squash

[david friedman]

>  > Also, while I agree that Lagenaria is a likely guess for the medieval
>>  "pumpkin," do we know that it is more than a guess? _The Four Seasons
>>  of the House of Cerruti_ and related books do have pictures.
>
>Well, the lagenaria gourds do come in the sizes and shapes that
>the pictures depict, and they were known in Europe before 1492. I'd have
>to dig into some archeaobotanical texts to be sure that lagenaria seeds
>have been found, though. We do know that the gourds/pompions had hard
>walls that could be scrapped clean of the flesh and dried to make
>containers (cf. Walafrid Strabo, I believe), so we are probably not
>looking at a melon or cucumber, the varieties of C. pepo documented to the
>old world.
>
>Your Grace, do you have suspicions as to alternate identities for the
>pompions and gourds mentioned in pre-1492 recipes?

No. Lagenaria was Elizabeth's best guess when she researched the 
subject a good many years back.

But I believe there are a fair number of Chinese edible gourds/melons 
that aren't either C. Pepo or Lagenaria, and I just don't know enough 
about them, or what exists elsewhere in Eurasia. The Indian Karela is 
Momordica Charantia, for instance--although I don't think that could 
be it, since it requires special preparation steps to get rid of the 
bitterness.

I was just hoping that someone else might have it tied down more definitely.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/