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The Great Pumpkin and Kin - Page 2

© Audrey Stallsmith

Settlers also hollowed out pumpkins to fill them with milk, spices, and honey, and roast them in hot ashes. Voila! A pudding very similar to pumpkin pie! The flesh of pumpkin and other winter squashes also flavors delectable and highly nutritious soups, sweet breads, cakes, and muffins. Because they are high in beta-carotene, these tawny treats may even help prevent cancer.

Herbalists also recommend pumpkin for the elimination of intestinal parasites (worms), prostrate problems, and dizziness. John Heinerman touts a syrup made from combining ground up pumpkin seeds—known as pepitas--with honey or molasses to treat the first two maladies. James Duke explains that it is probably the seeds’ high levels of zinc, amino acids, and cucurbitacins that makes them effective against prostate problems.

Applied to the skin, cold mashed pumpkin or winter squash soothes mild burns, sunburns, headaches, and neuralgia. The crushed leaves have been used as a poultice for sprains and bruises.

And, of course, in story and rhyme, pumpkins have come in handy for everything from containing pumpkin-eaters’ wives, to “coaching” Cinderella, to terrifying irksome schoolmasters. But, to someone like me who is partial to pumpkin “pottage and puddings and custard and pies,” that can seem like a dreadful waste of the main ingredient!

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