They remained all day drying. In the evening I would go out and gather them, pulling them up in whole sheets. Splitting them open and laying them down one upon another, caused them to adhere as they dried, so that they lay on the grass in a kind of thin matting. I always began pulling up the blossoms from one side of this matting, and as I say, they came away in whole sheets.
We put away the dried blossoms in bags, like those used for corn. These bags were made with round bottom and soft-skin mouth that tied easily. Bags were usually made of calf skin.
In my father’s family we always put away one sack full of dried squash blossoms for winter.
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.
