pumpkins for eating

Setting the Stage

With Halloween past, we can now turn our attention to other things pumpkin — eating them. Although the earliest relatives of pumpkins probably originated somewhere in Central America, a typical autumn scene in New England has long been smoldering sugar maples and ashen gray skies creating a backdrop for tawny fields scattered with ripe, orange pumpkins.

Indeed, Native Americans cultivated pumpkins in the Northeast long before white settlers arrived. In those distant centuries, preparation of pumpkins for eating was simple and savory: whole fruits were bedded in the ashes of a fire, then drizzled with animal fat and honey or maple syrup.

White settlers soon adopted pumpkin as a staple, valuable for its nourishment and for being able to keep through winter. Read more