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 Post subject: The Great Pumpkin Mystery
PostPosted: Sat Nov 17, 2012 12:31 am 
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Location: Portland, OR
All:

Pumpkin seeds are a staple of Mexican cuisine. They are used to thicken sauces and drinks, as a seasoning and as a crunchy snack. And yet ... having cased five Mexican cookbooks at my local library, I found not one recipe using pumpkin flesh.

Where does all the Mexican pumpkin go?

Do they just throw it away? Feed it to their pigs? Does it all end up in Libby's cans? Is it used as a building material? Is there some weird variety of pumpkin in Zacatecas which has thousands of seeds and no flesh? Do they process it into fake drugs to sell to San Diego college students? Where does it go?

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 Post subject: Re: The Great Pumpkin Mystery
PostPosted: Sat Nov 17, 2012 2:12 am 
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Hmmm, you got me curious! According to google, they eat them:

http://patismexicantable.com/2011/10/pumpkin-and-ancho-chile-mole.html

http://mexicanfood.about.com/od/savorysides/r/candiedpumpkin.htm

http://www.rd.com/food/rick-bayless-recipe-smoky-braised-mexican-pumpkin/

And another candy recipe (maybe most of it becomes candy?)

http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/2180-candied-pumpkin-calabaza-en-tacha

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 Post subject: Re: The Great Pumpkin Mystery
PostPosted: Sat Nov 17, 2012 2:29 am 
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Location: Portland, OR
Carey,

Thanks! Even Bayless mentions the mystery though:

Quote:
Though its flesh and seeds supplied nourishment to the locals for millenia, not too many savory calabaza recipes show up in cookbooks or restaurants or on special-occasion tables. Yet heavy slices hacked from big pumpkins always are for sale in my local Mexican grocery.


... including your own, Rick. I flipped through two of your cookbooks and checked the index; zero pumpkin recipes.

Maybe it's like fish and Turkish cookbooks. According to one cookbook author, while the Turkish eat fish (and a fair amount too), it's considered what you eat if you can't afford meat. So you didn't see Turkish recipes for fish in cookbooks until non-Turkish people started writing them. Maybe Mexicans consider pumpkin desperation food, and thus not worth publishing recipes on.

Do we have a Mexican on the board?

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 Post subject: Re: The Great Pumpkin Mystery
PostPosted: Sat Nov 17, 2012 9:30 am 
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I have often wondered the same thing! I have seen a few recipes, but very few. I figured it must be food for the pigs. I remember a candied recipe I think in my Oaxaca CB.

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 Post subject: Re: The Great Pumpkin Mystery
PostPosted: Sat Nov 17, 2012 6:54 pm 
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In a similar vein I wonder if other countries eat their corn on the cob, or if it gets made into flour.


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 Post subject: Re: The Great Pumpkin Mystery
PostPosted: Sun Nov 18, 2012 2:49 pm 
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Location: Near Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Re corn- I can tell you that in Italy you will never see people eat corn, it's all for flour or animal feed. My best friend moved to Italy after high school and every time he comes back for a visit it's all he wants!


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 Post subject: Re: The Great Pumpkin Mystery
PostPosted: Sun Nov 18, 2012 3:24 pm 
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Location: New York
BeckyH wrote:
In a similar vein I wonder if other countries eat their corn on the cob, or if it gets made into flour.

Our French cousins do eat corn on the cob but, they don't eat it "on" the cob. They slice it off the cob, then eat it.


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 Post subject: Re: The Great Pumpkin Mystery
PostPosted: Mon Nov 19, 2012 4:43 am 
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Swiss corn used to taste like cow food. It is better now (not farm fresh America great) and sometimes people it it on the cob but that is recent and not very Swiss. Swiss is canned corn eaten cold on a salad. I once bought seeds from the States and gave them to a local farmer to grow. She refused to pick them when I said they were ready and left them on the stalk til they were like cow food and then charged me for it. In Turkey, corn on the cob seems quite popular. They sell it from grills or pots of water on the street. It looked good...

Mary


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 Post subject: Re: The Great Pumpkin Mystery
PostPosted: Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:31 am 
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And there was a time that lobsters were so prevalent and easy to grab that only the poor ate them.


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 Post subject: Re: The Great Pumpkin Mystery
PostPosted: Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:39 am 
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Location: Ottawa, ON
Driving over a mountain pass in Romania, at the top they were selling hot corn on the cob in the mini-snowstorm (it was summer, so drivers aren't dressed for it); it was quite nice. I never heard of people eating it at home, though, I think it is mostly a roadside thing.


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