So the reporter ‘researched’ until they came to clickbaitable conclusion then stopped before getting to the truth.
And they wonder why we don’t read the popular press any more.
That, plus ‘winter squash’ <> Cucurbita moschata, and ED Smith’s canned pumpkin is 100% Dicksonian pumpkin. (Yay, Canada!)
Yep, growing up in Australia, pumpkin was roasted in the pan on Sundays with the beef/lamb/chicken (never turkey). Sometimes we ate it boiled, and that was OK, if a little bland. It was cheap, cheap, cheap. Almost free. Some regarded it as pig food. We thought it quite weird that pumpkin pie was a dessert in the US. Ironically, I like it, but my Canadian wife does not. Our kids are split 50:50. More pie for Declan and Me!
It took me maybe five seconds to type “canned pumpkin” into Google and read the first link, which told me exactly what kind of pumpkin is used in canned pumpkin. It’s a shame that people who get paid for this stuff don’t do that kind of, er, laborious research.
It’s because instead of brains, the Wizard gave them a diploma.
Around here, they sell both carving pumpkins and “pie pumpkins”, which are smaller and denser with very little of an interior cavity once the seeds have been scraped out.
An old family recipe for individuals having regularity issues is a few spoons of canned pumpkin. I have no firsthand experience but it’s reportedly very effective, and the canned stuff is available year-round, unlike actual pumpkins.
The tastiest part of the pumpkin is the seeds, cooked in butter and a little salt.
The idea of pumpkin as anything except a main-meal vegetable is utterly bizarre to an Australian POV. “Pumpkin pie” is almost as weird as “broccoli cupcakes” or similar.
OTOH, there’s plenty of good stuff to do with pumpkin that doesn’t involve roasting. My favourite winter meal is my pumpkin/ginger soup.
I still have my grandma’s cookbooks from the fifties. They’re relics of another time, illustrated by Charley Harper and shit. The recipes all call for eight egg yolks, the whole bottle of mayonnaise, and like a metric fuckton of paprika. It’s awesome. I don’t cook out of these books a lot, but about once a year or so when I get hungry for some throwback food I literally can’t find anywhere else.
I can’t believe it’s not pumpkin!
It’s like they painted the store orange.
and like a metric fuckton of paprikaIn the 50s, we were all culturally Hungarian, I guess.
I definitely found that to be the case. After eating a fantastic lunch of pasta tossed with chunks of roasted pumpkin in Sydney, I talked with my Aussie tour leader about pumpkin pie and tried to explain that in the fall, Americans eat pumpkin donuts, pumpkin pop-tarts, and countless other sweet pumpkin-spice-flavored things along with pumpkin coffee, and he was properly horrified and baffled.
Although here in New England, pumpkin has a grand history of being used as a main dish vegetable as well. Pumpkin soup and other dishes with pumpkin are very popular in the fall.
Well, they aren’t exactly lying. The taxonomy of cucurbita is open to debate, but most place all the domesticated winter squash in the same species. Like how poodles and wolfhounds differ a lot phenotypically, but are the same species. That doesn’t mean that you can ask a friend to watch your miniature poodle, present them with a wolfhound, and expect them to be happy about it, though.
You have to cut it up, cook it, skin it, squeeze the juice out in cheesecloth, and puree it to break down the fibers. It is enough to make your hands hurt for days.
