As I had loads to taste test and because I felt that cooking would be too much work on top of the rest, I decided to taste all my pumpkins raw this year and transformed every one of them (about 500) into soup with a friends’ association.
Documented here: Direct seed exchange among EU members 2024-2025 - #21 by ThomasPicard
I believe - so may not be entirely right - that raw tasting was enough for that scale and that particular year, even though this may not give a clear indication of texture post cooking. I may end up with some perfect squash for raw consumption, in salad mostly, as members of the culinary breeding network have been advocating for. I hope they will be perfect for a dual use. Overall I bet that raw taste contains the most organoleptic compounds, flavors - which could prove to be wring, but I don’t see why it could be so. It was a really really enjoyable experience, to my surprise. I could target more intentionnally the dual use in the future, as raw food is trending and no particular effort has been made on squash and pumpkins selection for raw use.
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