344527 Mon Nov 20 20:03:05 -0800 2006 7 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 2035174 Ah, let me put on my gardening hat for a moment here. The reason many made from scratch pumpkin pies are so bad is that not all pumpkins are created equal. Actually, to be precise, 'pumpkin' is NOT a botanically precise term. 'Pumpkin' is a visual designation. Any winter squash can be called a pumpkin if fits our visual criteria for pumpkin: round, ribbed, orange (with a special exception made for the white ones). Not everything that's called a pumpkin is even the same species! Most of them, the Jack-O-Lantern types, are Cucurbita maxima, but some like Small Sugar are C. pepo, and the ones that are used in canning such as Dickinson are C. moschata, which don't even look like a classic pumpkin. Go to http://www.mobot.org/gardeninghelp/plantfinder/Squash.asp and scroll down to see a picture of one. Further down the page is Winter Luxury Pie, reportedly one of the best for pie making. The Jack-o-lantern types have been bred for thin walls that are easy to carve. Taste was not a factor! They make terrible pies because they're watery, stringy, not particularly sweet, and frankly not very tasty. Nothing wrong with the species -- some of the best eating squashes are C. maxima, but Jack-o-lanterns aren't them! Hope this was of interest and not to gardening geeky. I have a passion for winter squashes. They're so beautiful, come in such a variety, and have a wide range of tastes and textures. Mon Nov 20 05:29:19 -0800 2006 19542 Karen_Schaffer 1 2035185 That's all true. Yet, bad results can come from Sugar Pie pumpkins too, and unfortunately, I've tasted them. Here's a link to a thread on the Home Cooking board for discussing the best pumpkins for cooking - http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/338877 Mon Nov 20 05:36:18 -0800 2006 2035174 10039 Melanie Wong 2 2036101 There are a lot of potential factors for good/bad squashes. Many squashes (C. maximas, particularly) will convert starches to sugars in storage, so they'll taste better in January than in October. C. pepos, on the other hand, don't store well and should be used sooner rather than later. Varieties that usually are good may not be if a squash didn't mature fully before being picked, if they didn't get enough sun, or the plant suffered from disease or insects. The best thing to do, I've found, is to taste a sliver of the squash raw. The better it tastes raw, the better it'll taste cooked. I guess as a gardener I'm acutely aware of the variability of produce even within the same variety. So all I can guess for the bad Sugar Pie pumpkin pies is that the squashes weren't optimum, for whatever reason, and the pie maker should have tasted the pumpkins and stopped. Personally, I use Sugar Pie pumpkins for Mollie Katzen's Pumpkin Soup Tureen recipe, so I can't actually speak to pie making. But I'm tempted to grow Winter Luxury Pie next year and try making a pie with it. Btw, Amy Goldman has a book called The Compleat Squash with gorgeous pictures of squashes by Victor Schrager. She drives me crazy by describing all of the blue-green-gray squashes as 'vermillion green', but other than that, it's a good book. Mon Nov 20 17:59:55 -0800 2006 2035185 19542 Karen_Schaffer 2 2036504 That thread fails to mention the squash of choice of every home pie baker I know. Check out this one: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/344150 Mon Nov 20 19:48:45 -0800 2006 2035185 11369 Robert Lauriston 3 3054610 I grow "Winter Luxeries: and my wife uses them for all her pumpkin recipes; pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, soup, muffins, bread, lasagna, everything pumpkin. We've used butternut squash, kabotcha squash(all of which taste great on their own), but nothing, and I mean nothing beats the Winter Luxury for taste, and texture. There is no comparison. The only one to come close is the "Long Pie", another heirloom variety another would be the "Amish Pie" pumpkin. These varieties , with "Winter Luxury" at the top of the list, offer the best of the pumpkin/winter squash worlds, not too dry, like most winter squash, and not too stringy like most pumpkin, including the New England sugar pumpkin. These varieties also possess a subtle sweetness, that, combine with their velvet like texture, make them unbeatable. Sun Oct 21 16:03:54 -0700 2007 2036504 136427 john Pennell 4 3055337 I'm growing Winter Luxury Pie, Amish Pie, and Dickinson as a Master Gardener trial this year, and am really looking forward to a 'pie off' to compare the three varieties! Winter Luxury is such a beautiful squash too. I hope it works as well for me as it does for you. Sun Oct 21 22:18:18 -0700 2007 3054610 19542 Karen_Schaffer 1 3059623 With regards to winter squashes - I have an extreme interest on the diversity of these plants since they have left mesoamerica and were brought throughout the world by explorers, traders and how they have been changed - or been 'selected' for certain qualities. In specific - the Kabocha and Hokkaido varieties of Japan - did the Portuguese or Spanish Missionaries bring these. I recall something with an association with the name "Kabocha" and Cambodia. Tue Oct 23 10:50:51 -0700 2007 2035174 14086 kare_raisu 2 3060068 According to Emi Kazuko, 'Japanese Cooking' (Hermes House), 'Originally from Central America, this Japanese squash is the result of various crossbreedings over the last century.' Just across the page, the same author says 'Originating in Central America, the sweet potato was introduced to Japan via Spain, the Philippines, China and Okinawa. It first arrived in Satsuma, the southernmost area of Japan, hence is Japanese name, meaning satsuma potato.' Another possible route for Kabocha is the reverse flow of Japanese immigrants from Latin America. Peru and Brazil have large Japanese immigrant populations. I don't know about Central America. It may be easier to examine why the Japanese adopted these vegetables, and how they modified them to their taste. paulj Tue Oct 23 12:39:28 -0700 2007 3059623 12139 paulj