There are jack-o-lantern pumpkins and pie pumpkins. What is the
difference botanically?

TIA
Holley

On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 00:27:08 GMT, Holley wrote:

There are jack-o-lantern pumpkins and pie pumpkins. What is the
difference botanically?

TIA
Holley


There are varieties of pumpkins that are better for jack-o-lanterns.
Generally, the larger ones are best. The "original" jack-o-lantern
was actually a turnip and there's an interesting story about it
(Google to find it!). I make jack-o-lanterns every year, set them on
the front porch, and cook the pumpkin the next day. It takes a few
hours to cook out most of the liquid. After cooling, I store the pulp
in Ziploc bags and freeze them. Near Thanksgiving I make several pies
for my neighbors. They have a much better taste than the canned
pumpkin but not quite as orange in color. My favorite is roasted
pumpkin seeds and these are usually gone at the end of day that
pumpkins are carved.

Holley said:

There are jack-o-lantern pumpkins and pie pumpkins. What is the
difference botanically?

Jack-o-lantern pumpkins are almost always a large orange squash from
the species Cucurbita pepo. These are cultivars selected for thinner walls
and long, strong stems (sometimes referred to as handles in seed-catalog
speak). Pie pumpkins can refer to other C. pepo squashes that have more
substantial or less stringy flesh and more flavor and sweetness. But
'pumpkin' for pies and other delicious dishes could well be squash from
other species, C. moschata (butternut and cheese* squash), C. maxima (Hubbard,
buttercup, banana and kabocha squashes) or C. mixta (cushaws). C. pepo squashes
include (in addition to pumpkins) delicata, acorn, spaghetti and summer sqashes.
[NOTE: this is not an exhaustive list, just some of the better-known types.]

*Called that because they resemble wheels of cheese. (I've grown them myself.)
--
Pat in Plymouth MI ('someplace.net' is comcast)

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
(attributed to Don Marti)