Greetings from Pumpkin Land

Yeah, it's that time of year again... Thanksgiving in the US... I have a love-hate relationship with that day, used to love it.

Where I live is pumpkin land, just realised. It's a very important crop in our region.

I spent one foggy November day in the late 70's, sitting in a field, splitting pumpkins open, and harvesting the seeds. The rest of them were mostly left to rot. Or mulch, or whatever you want to call it. It was the seeds... 'Styrian Gold', they call it. It was clammy cold, and so on, but there was this group, and everyone was telling side-splitting jokes, and we just DID it. And in the end, it was fun.

So why were the seeds so important, and still are? They get dried, and pressed, and then you have a wonderful oil. It is dark green, looks like something you'd want to use to grease machinery with. It is used on salads, like rapunzel with bits of potato and onion. And it is expensive, because it takes a lot of pumpkins to turn up enough seeds to get a liter out of them.

There is an international group out there, I kid you not, and they swear on how healthy it is... especially for prostate problems, and since it affects men, got attention. They had a convention where I lived. A liter bottle here was going for about 100-120 Austrian schillings, which was about ten to twelve dollars. In New Yawwk... which was one of the places it was available, it was going for 130 dollars a half-liter. Nice profit margin, and good on 'em if they were able to bilk them for it.

I, of course, was amazed... 'Why waste all that good pumpkin? We do all sorts of things to cook it, it seems sad...'

Well, over the decades, they did learn, and squash, which had been theretofore on a menu and fairly bland became a hit. And pumpkin? There were a lot of people who cooked it. Poverty food, ya know, after the war. I learned it from the mother of a co-worker. And it is so basic totally Austrian cooking and so delicious, it was always a staple on my menu.

Oddly, there isn't any distinction in the word for squash and pumpkin here. All the same name.

And obviously, big differences.

Ive been a very.... VERY subversive influence here in one family. Because they thought it was unthinkable.... I made a pumpkin pie for people I knew. Most of them didn't care for it. Not really, it seemed 'unnatural' to them somehow. And it was really good, mind you.

However... the son in this family 'lurrved' it. And for many birfdays after did he want cake? Nope. He wanted a pumpkin pie, gawwd love him... His mother made me give her the recipe.

And I grinned. Oooo... subversive, ewww!

So Happy... but Annti's card... think about it...