Cooks disagree over the taste of this rather flat pumpkin with brilliant red-orange skin.  Some says its flavor is sweet and custard-like, while others grumble that the flesh is watery and not fit to grace a humble pie crust.  Even if you don’t puree it for pie, it’s still attractive enough to display on a porch or side table.

Although this variety doesn’t have many seeds, it is an heirloom, which means that you can save and dry its seeds, and plant them next year to grow your own Cinderella-carriages.  (You can plant the seeds of non-heirloom varietites, too, of course, but they don’t always grow true-to-type.  That simply means you won’t get baby pumpkins that look exactly like the one you started with.)

And just for fun, here’s a recipe from my book, Gardening with Heirloom Seeds.  The recipe was originally published in 1896 in a cookbook called The Thorough Good Cook, authored by George Augustus Sala:

“Take a ripe pumpkin, and chip off the rind or skin; halve it, and take out the seed and puffy part in the centre, which throw away. Cut the pumpkin into small, thin slices; fill a pie-dish therewith; add a teaspoonful of sugar, with a small quantity of water. Cover…and bake in the ordinary way. Pumpkin pie is greatly improved by being eaten with clotted cream and sugar.”

pumpkins for pie or the porch? the choice is yours!

Well said, George!

Lynn

www.LynnCoulter.com