I’m growing Cucurbita at culinary school and try to involve students and teachers in selecting flavorful squash that they like to use in the kitchen. My overall goals and how I try to go about it, I document here.
This thread I want to document Cucurbita pepo.
The genetics I started out with in 2023 came from a handful of named modern varieties, mostly green and yellow zucchini, as well as a generous donation from @ThomasPicard of a 15 variety acorn grex.
Here’s an snapshot of some forms - what was left of the pepo for the last class (with some melons sneaked in as a test):
Some notes from the first year’s taste panels that indicate which kinds of traits are present right now:
Winner: Little, flat lightly beige acorn with yellow stripes and aroma of cake, butter and shortcrust pastry.
Surprise: A light yellow acorn with darkyellow stripes, deeply lobed. Hard skin. Sweet, slightly nauseous aroma. Raw grainy, flour-like, starchy and very dense and astringent, sucks all the mouth water. Unpleasant. Cooked lightly in oven it becomes almost identical to a baked potato. You can actually see the flakes of starch. Starches brown in the oven too. Everyone was a bit dumbfounded. This is a trait I don’t know existed in pepo and I’m compelled to try and branch this out as an independent line. Any thoughts?
Forms: Ball-round courgette-type, yellow crookneck, acorn (creme white, dark green), flat patterson/acorn (yellow, white, green)
Aroma: Milk, yoghurt, melon, neutral (no aroma), cake and pastry
Taste: Nuts, green hazelnuts, woody, bitter, sweet, starchy
Consistency: Watery, Crisp and crunchy, dry and grainy, like carrot
Very cool! I wish the US had more interest in the relationship between growing and cooking. I remember Cornell University in New York, USA was collaborating with Chef Dan Barber on a project trying to grow stuff for flavor, but I don’t recall the project having much focus on genetic diversity.
As for your starchy squash, I wonder how it tastes when you substitute it for potato in dishes where potato would normally be used (gnocchi, croquette, salchipapa, lefse, samosa…) Maybe after you taste some dishes, you’ll know what direction to take a separate breeding line.
Ciel, maybe this wasn’t clear enough from my notes, but the consistency and flavor was surprisingly similar to potato. I’ve separated the seed from that particular fruit so it could be possible to grow that offspring out on its own.
Trying to fully understand the texture (because there’s a range of “potato” from Russet to red new potatoes). Is it similar to the texture that about half of kabocha squashes have?
I would compare it to what we call a baking potato and I believe you call a russet in the US. A starchy potato. I like your reference to Kabocha-type maximas. I hadn’t considered but think you might be on to something. The most common kabocha here in Denmark is Blue Kuri and I can taste the starch there too - similarly to baking potato or perhaps sweet chestnut. How would you describe the difference between potato and kabocha? I get the sense that you can distinguish better than me.
