The history of spaghetti squash in America | Hacker News Reader

The history of spaghetti squash in America

atlasobscura.com

47 pointspepys54 comments

Recommendation for eating spaghetti squash in the spaghetti style, use half actual spaghetti pasta. You get the taste of pasta you're craving in each bite but with half the benefits of substituting of a full plate of spaghetti squash.

Easy way to cook is to slice in half lengthways and scoop out the seeds (I broadcast these later in the "back 40" to grow more no effort squash). Place a half cut side down on a dinner plate and microwave for 12 minutes on high. Then fluff out the strands using two forks. Great with any kind or curry Thai or Indian.

Squash are notoriously promiscuous and rarely breed true. You might get plants coming up from the seeds you scatter, but the edibility of their fruit will always be a surprise.

Those... slutty squash!

The angel hair squash (not really a squash) is in a different species Cucurbita hederifolia, and it cames true by seed.

Maybe the yellow skin could turn more green and splotched like the wild species, but is basically the same in terms of edibility.

Is also one of the pumpkins that can really last. You can store the beautifully yellow mottled green fruit for more than four years in a dry place. It it was pick carefully, will be perfectly edible still after this time. Wouldn't try the same with a Cucurbita maxima.

TIL that the English language has two different words for pumpkins. But I'm still not sure when it's a pumpkin and when it's a squash?

Ok, according to Wikipedia:

> A pumpkin is a vernacular term for mature winter squash of species and varieties in the genus Cucurbita that has culinary and cultural significance but no agreed upon botanical or scientific meaning.

So "pumpkin" is the more widespread term (at least that's my feeling?), and it can be applied to all "squashes", but it's not scientifically correct?

Isn't cucumber the green elongated ribbed vegetable that is mostly watery and used in salads, while squash is another word for (a variety) of pumpkin?

Sorry, I wrote cucumber by mistake instead of pumpkin and then edited my comment! (but cucumbers are also from the same family as squashes/pumpkins, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucurbitaceae)

Wait, really?

My experience (at least in the US and UK) is the opposite. A pumpkin is a very particular (usually round and orange) type of squash. Squash is the generic term for most of the vegetables (both winter and summer variety) that are eaten.

I've really only seen "Pumpkin" used more commonly in Australia, where I was surprised to see someone refer to what I knew as a butternut squash as a pumpkin.

I have to say I haven't spent a lot of time grocery shopping in English-speaking countries, so my impression is probably skewed by Halloween pumpkins...

When you think of a pumpkin you'll likely envision a particular type of squash, but if you buy canned pumpkin or eat a randomly purchased "pumpkin" pie you're unlikely to be eating the type of squash that you envision.

As per https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/what-is-in-canned-pum... the company responsible for 85% of the world's canned "pumpkin" doesn't actually use the type of squash you're likely envisioning (and links the FDA docs allowing a variety of squash to be labeled as such: https://www.fda.gov/regulatory-information/search-fda-guidan...), and the type of squash you're likely envisioning having a fairly mediocre flavour relative to the alternatives.

In a sense I think you're both completely right and completely wrong in different ways.

A pumpkin is a specific type of squash. If you can either 1) carve a face into in and set it on your doorstep on Halloween, or 2) bake it into a tasty pie served on Thanksgiving, it's a pumpkin. Also, if it vaguely looks like one of the above mentioned gourds, but is strictly ornamental, you can call it a pumpkin, even though it probably isn't. Otherwise, it's a squash.

I think "pumpkin pies" should actually be made with butternut? much sweeter/tastier

I believe most canned pumpkin that you might buy actually is butternut.

As a child in the 80s UK - a gourd was the commonly used word for all squashes - and gourds were pretty rare to find in a shop. If you saw a gourd it was often an ornamental dried gourd that someone would have as a gift from the states. 'Squash' was a real Americanism, and wasn't wildly used in the people I knew until the late 90s. I remember my bother working as a farm hand an bring some squashes home with hi to eat, and him having to explain them as gourdes to family/neighbours who were interested in how 'ugly' they looked.

Pumpkins were always the orange, large and round ones - and back in the 80s we still carved turnips or swedes in the North of England, as pumpkins were too expensive.

Im from US, and we always had a vegetable garden growing up. Names were much the same from my point of view. Gourds were mostly hard and ornamental, squash is an edible gourd, and they weren’t really too much of a thing until the internet made everything popular.

Being from the US, I’d say a gourd is any “hollow” squash, especially one you don’t normally eat in its normal form. So a pumpkin is both a gourd and a squash. Butternut squash is probably a gourd but definitely not a pumpkin. Zucchini is neither a gourd nor a pumpkin, but is decidedly a squash.

In German, all of the above are simply called "Kürbis" - except for the zucchini, which is a Zucchini...

"Squash" is a broad term referring to many kinds of fruits, including both summer (zucchini, courgette) and winter (Hubbard, acorn, spaghetti, butternut, pumpkin). It's related to cucumbers and loofahs. "Pumpkin" is a particular named variety of winter squash, which varies from region to region. In the USA, "pumpkin" usually refers to a round orange squash with relatively thin flesh and a range of sizes in which the larger ones are carved into "Jack-o-lanterns" in October and put on public display, and the smaller ones are cooked and combined with warm spices such as cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg and baked into pies, cakes, breads, puddings, and half-soy latte grandes. In other regions, pumkins are larger, thicker-flesh squashes of varying sizes and colours.

TL;DR all pumpkins are squash, but not all squash are pumpkins.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I really just can't get into squash. I've tried oven roasting it in every kind of way possible (seasoning, cuts, etc.) but the texture always gets to me in the end. Maybe I'm missing something.

It's a shame, because there are always a ton of it in the "expiring soon" baskets that my local grocery store sells (2kg for 3 EUR), so I'd really like to make it work.

Try grilling strips of different thickness.

And for winter squashes, butter and maple syrup.

Try a butternut squash. They have a much smoother texture, and aren’t water and stringy like other squashes.

You don't have to like it. You just have to eat it.

roast in the oven with salt and oil, then in the blender with some butter and cream and a dash of maple syrup to make a squash puree

>It's a shame, because there are always a ton of it in the "expiring soon" baskets that my local grocery store sells

>I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I really just can't get into squash.

These are directly related.

Anyway, I like squash seeds, I don't like squash. Maybe if I super flavor it like its indian food.

They’re best in soups and braises. One of my favorite dishes with squash is African couscous, the kind you’d make in a couscousier, with squash braised in a harissa based liquid.

The texture and flavor should come out similar to carrots, at least for butternut. YMMV because there are so many varieties of squash around the world.

You can also try sous vide to get the essence of squash flavor

I have had great success with this recipe and a pressure cooker.

My grandfather grew up on a farm and would eat without complaint practically anything digestible, but not squash. I guess it's the texture that gets to people. Maybe try coarse blending it and adding some salt, cinnamon, and butter. In the extreme, I think pumpkin pie counts as a serving of vegetable.

I like the “solid” squashes fine (butternut and friends, not sure what you call them) but i cannot stand spaghetti squash.

they’re quick to cook if you peel them first. you can do it with an ordinary veggie peeler.

A family friend gifted us a seed pack about 1976. Kid-me was living with depression-era squash eaters and was fairly skeptical it would be edible (especially after the broken promise that was baked, sugared acorn squash).

Come late summer the notion of eating weird food was too much to resist. We all adored it and wound up growing it every year afterward. It was and remains the only squash I'd ever knowingly eat.

Bake angel hair cakes. Is the best way to enjoy this fruit.

https://frankarril.blogspot.com/2013/12/pastelillos-de-cabel...

I'd like to see more kinds of squash in my local UK supermarket than just butternut, but, having tried spaghetti squash a few times from local farmers, I would not like it to be one of them. It's watery, bland tasting and disintegrates when cooked.

Alternative squashes I have enjoyed include pattypan, crown prince, kabocha and "turk's turban"

Agree on the assessment of spaghetti squash. One of my favorites is delicata squash, sliced and baked with a lil oil & salt.

Buttercup > butternut

How are you cooking it? For years I had always been baking spaghetti squash cut side down, but recently I tried it cut side up and it was a night and day difference. I also brush the inside with a good amount of olive oil and then season with some salt and a lot of black pepper.

It came out way less watery and the consistency was more like actual pasta. I'd recommend trying that if you haven't before.

Patty pan squash grows like crazy in most of the UK. If you live near a farm with cows or horses, get yourself as much manure as you can lay your hands on and dig it in well, and you will be eating the damn things until you're sick of them.

I love Hubbard squash. It's ugly and a bit of a pain to handle due to its size and the toughness of the rind, but the taste is amazing. It's the best for soups.

I usually cook the spaghetti squash in the microwave but then pull it out of the shell and toss it into a skillet with some olive oil, salt, and pepper and sauté it for a few minutes. This dries it out a little and blends in the oil and spices. You can add some garlic at this stage, too.

Some other squash I can recommend to try:

Golden Heart

Acorn

Danish

Black Futsu

White Swan Acorn

Sweet Dumpling

Red Kubota

The problem is that the moment you call something a "pumpkin", the English think it's cow food and refuse to eat it. But they'll happily eat butternut, which is a pumpkin really.

Spaghetti and acorn squash can cross pollinate. Spacorn squash look like acorn squash with a spaghetti texture- a bit surprising the first time I cooked one.

spaghetti squash (gila) is also the basis for a lot of Portuguese sweets, after being candied

I like Spaghetti Squash and use it in recipes all the time. The trick is to cut it horizontally (into rings), not vertically, before roasting in an oven :)

But then it wouldn’t shred into long spaghetti like strands?

They prefer rice squash

I take it you don't cut your spaghetti into short strands before cooking?

Before having children, this is some heathen talk. The long strands is the appealing part.

Now that I have kids. Yeah... I have to break them up.

Why break them up? Don’t they stick better to the walls if they’re longer?

What's the advantage of cutting it into disks? I'm curious because I cook it longwise pretty frequently.

It makes longer strings! :) It also roasts more evenly.

talking about "not-really-pasta" dishes, you should try "tagliatelle di mare" - sea tagliatelle / tagliatelle of squid

for example have a look at https://www.greatitalianchefs.com/recipes/tagliatelle-of-squ...

Eh, given how unsustainable fishing is, it feels dirty to click on that link and give them ad money for hosting it.

what? are you joking?

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