Complex Numbers

Squash Court

Final entry for November's "Journalistic Intentions"  [18+]

Delicata Squash  

One bit of trivia I remember from my misspent youth: "The pumpkin is the only edible gourd."

Like much of the trivia foisted upon an impressionable child, it's false... though the definitions of "pumpkin," "edible," and "gourd" are as squishy as a jack-o'lantern on November 1.

Botanically, cucurbita pepo (which if you follow the link would be the binomial for, among other vegetables, delicata squash) is interesting, similar in some ways to citrus fruits or the cruciferous vegetables cabbage/kale/broccoli/cauliflower/kohlrabi/etc. Or dogs, for that matter, though "botany" and "dog" don't really work together. The point being that for some species, innate genetic traits make diversification relatively easy.

Based solely on the Wikipedia article linked above, Delicata squash is a cultivar of the same species that also yields such diverse foods as zucchini and spaghetti squash... as well as some varieties of pumpkins. The reason the definition of "pumpkin" is squishy is that, just to cloud the matter, some pumpkins are of an entirely different lineage.

The reason the definition of "edible" is squishy is that for a long time, I didn't consider zucchini to be edible. Lately I've grown rather more fond of it, when properly prepared (it took a long time to get over my mother's cooking habits). But it obviously tastes quite different from pumpkin, and apparently also from delicata, which I haven't actually tried.

And the definition of "gourd" is squishy because... well, that gets into a lot of details that are irrelevant to the discussion at hand; basically, gourds were known in Eurasia/Africa from antiquity - they're even mentioned in the Bible - whereas seeds taken in prehistoric times to the American continents took a different path, one which brought us to pumpkins and squash like zucchini. Which, to muddy the waters even further, is known as courgette in the UK and France.

That's right -- despite the obvious Italian origins of the name, zucchini is (or to be pedantic, "are") American. By which I mean the continents in general, not specifically from the US. This origin, they share with things like tomatoes, potatoes, and maize, all of which Europeans happily adopted in an early bout of cultural appropriation.

Anyway, despite its relationship with pumpkins, I don't think anyone's going to carve delicata squash for Halloween. But it sounds to me like a good addition to any harvest feast.