Cooking and Uses of Squash
The First Squashes
The first squashes of the season that we plucked were about three inches in diameter; that is, they were gathered as soon as we thought they were fit for cooking; and that same day we picked blossoms also.
There might be three or four basketfuls of squashes at this first picking. These squashes we did not dry, but ate fresh; as they were the first vegetables of the season, we were eager to eat them. We cooked fresh squashes as follows:
Boiling Fresh Squash in a Pot. I took a clay pot of our native manufacture, partly filled it with fresh squashes and added water. The smaller squashes I put in whole; larger ones I cut in two. I did not remove the seeds; left in the squash they made it taste sweeter.
Figure 22
Redrawn from sketch by Goodbird.
I now took big leaves of the sunflower and thrust them, stem upward, between the squashes and the sides of the pot; the leaves then stood in a circle around the inside of the pot, with the upper surface of each leaf inward. I added more squashes until the pot was quite full, even heaping. The sunflower leaves I then bent inward, folding them naturally over the squashes. I now set the pot on the fire.
Under my direction Goodbird has made a sketch of a pot of fresh squashes ([figure 22]); the sunflower leaves are placed and ready to be folded down.
Squashes thus prepared were boiled a little longer than beef is boiled. The sunflower leaves were put over the pot merely as a lid or covering. It is hard to cook squashes without a cover, and this was our way of providing one. Blossoms were not added when squashes were thus prepared.
When the cooking was done, the green sunflower leaves, used as a cover, were removed with a stick, and thrown away.
I had a bowl of cold water near by. I dipped my hand into the water and lifted out the squash pieces one by one, and laid them on a bowl or dish. The cold water protected my hand; for the squashes were quite hot.
Most of the water in the pot had boiled out, only a little being left in the bottom of the pot. The pieces of squash immersed in this hot water I lifted out with a horn spoon. Not much water was ever put in the pot anyhow, for it was the steam mostly that cooked the squashes. The pot was quite heaped with squashes at the first, but the cooking reduced the bulk, making the heap go down.
The squash pieces in the bottom of the pot were apt to be a little burned or browned; and so were made sweeter, and were very good to eat.
This was the way we cooked fresh squashes in my father’s family until I was eighteen years old; at that time we got an iron dinner pot, and began to boil our food in it instead of the old fashioned clay pot.
Fresh squashes, to be at their best, should be cooked on the day they are picked; left over to the next day they never taste so good.
Squashes Boiled with Blossoms. Fresh squashes were sometimes boiled with fresh blossoms and fats. Sunflower leaves were not then used as a covering. Squashes so cooked were usually small; and when done, they were lifted out of the pot with a horn spoon. Cooking this mess was really by boiling, not steaming, as in the mess above described.
Other Blossom Messes
When I wanted to cook fresh squash blossoms, I plucked them early in the morning, stripping them of the little points, or spicules shown as a, a´, and a´´ in [figure 23]. These spicules I stripped backward, or downward. I do not know why we did this; it was our custom. Then I broke the blossom off the stem at the place in the figure marked with a dotted line. The green bulbous part of the blossom I crushed or pinched between my thumb and finger, to make it soft and hasten cooking; for the yellow, blossom part soon cooked.
Figure 23
I will now give you recipes for some messes made with these fresh, crushed, spicule-stripped blossoms; however, dried blossoms were often used in these messes instead, and were just as good.
Boiled Blossoms. A little water was brought to boil in a clay pot. A handful of blossoms, either fresh or dried, was tossed into the pot and stirred with a stick. They shrunk up quite small, and another handful of blossoms was tossed in. This was continued until a small basketful of the blossoms had been stirred into the pot.
Into this a handful of fat was thrown, or a little bone grease was poured in; and the mess was let boil a little longer than meat is boiled, and a little less than fresh squash is boiled. The mess was then ready to eat.
Blossoms Boiled with Mạdạpo´zi I’ti´a. Mạdạpo´zi i’ti´a was made, the pot being put on the fire in the early afternoon and boiled for the rest of the day. In the night following the fire would go out and the mess would get cold.
In the morning the pot was set on the fire again, and if I was going to use fresh blossoms I went out to the field to gather them, expecting to return and find the pot heated and ready. The newly gathered blossoms, crushed as described, I dropped in the rewarmed mess, and boiled for half an hour, when the pot was taken off, and the mess was served.
Sometimes this mess was further varied by adding beans.
Blossoms Boiled with Mäpi´ Nakapa´. The blossoms were first boiled. Meal of pounded parched corn and fats were then added and the whole was boiled for half an hour.
Like the previous mess, this was sometimes varied by adding beans.