Just for Chris and those on the list who don't live in the US.
In the US the pumpkin is a moderately large winter squash - it has a
hard, inedible skin and soft pulp up to 2" thick in the center of
which sit all its seeds and the filaments which divide the seed
compartments.
We use the pulpy flesh for pie, first preferably steaming it and then
mashing it and adding egg, sugar, spices and cream or milk to make it
pourable. We bake the pie without a crust. It is a sweet dessert
pie, not a main dish sort of pie.
We also use the pulpy flesh as a base for various sorts of cookies,
muffins and heavy tea cakes, especially blended with chopped nuts.
The skin and filaments are discarded, preferably into some sort of
composting operation.
The seeds are dried and ejected from their cases. They are flat and
maybe 1/2" long and 1/4 wide at the widest midpoint. Often they are
roasted and salted and sold in little packets at convenience stores.
Pumpkin seed oil is a very small market here in the US.
The final use for pumpkins is as decorations at the time of all
hallow's eve. The pumpkin seed mass is eviscerated and a face is cut
into the pumpkin wall so that a candle inside the pumpkin will shine
through the cuts - eyes, toothy mouth, eyebrows, noses. The object
of the game is to display the jack o' lantern on Hallow'een evening
to greet young people, preferably children, who dress up in scarey
costumes and bring a bag into which candy and fruit treats are placed.
Much entertainment is gained from the trip to the farm to buy the
pumpkin, the carving of the face and the brief excursion at dusk to
collect the "treat"s. Then the parents throw out the scorched
pumpkin and pay the dentist bill.
Corn, scientifically called zea mays, grows on a single tall green
stalk, cobs of it protruding from nodes along the stalk. It is
planted in rows for easy harvest and grows up to 5.5' or 6' tall.
The cobs have a leafy covering around them to protect them from
creatures that might eat the individual kernals which contain the
seed and a starchy coating inside a thin skin. The kernals grow in
rows along the cob.
Humans eat the corn kernals, mostly from plastic bags of frozen corn
or tins of canned corn which they buy at the market. During the very
brief ripening season, the corn is eaten directly from the cob after
gentle boiling or steaming with lots of butter. The dried corn is
also milled into a coarse meal which is baked into tortillas, corn
bread and coatings for other foods like fish fillets, chicken
products and hot dogs. Some like to stuff chicken or turkey with a
mixture of corn bread and herbs as well.
A different variety of corn is grown as feed for chickens, ducks,
geese, pigs and cows. This is not tender and suitable for human
consumption and is purchased dried in bags from the feed store.
Yet another variety of corn is grown to extract the sugars within the
starchy coating, which is sugary for a brief period before turning to
starch. Much more of this type of corn is grown in the US than any
other kind, since corn syrup is the primary sweetener in processed
foods throughout the world.
On this continent we also use the dried stalks as seasonal
decorations, tying them in bunches around pillars on our porches or
creating scarecrow characters to lounge among the stalks and hay
bales on our laws between Hallow'een and American Thanksgiving time.
Anything to make a buck!
--
Emily L. Ferguson
mailto:elf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
508-563-6822
New England landscapes, wooden boats and races
http://www.landsedgephoto.com
http://e-and-s.instaproofs.com/
