A recipe from the forthcoming SHH (Sustainability, Health, Heritage) Recipe Book.
Ingredients
(for 4 people)
800g pumpkin
2 potatoes (400g)
4 carrots
2 leeks
4 tablespoons olive oil
water
salt
parsley
pumpkin seeds
Instructions
Heat 5 cups of water with 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a casserole on the stove.
While heating, prepare the vegetables. To do this, peel the pumpkin and cut it into large dice. Top and tail the carrots, peel them and cut them into slices of about 1 centimeter. Clean the leek well to remove all dirt. Cut a small piece and keep it to decorate the dishes. Cut the rest of the leek into slices. Finally, peel the potato and chop it as for stew, that is, tear it into pieces with the help of a knife.
Once the vegetables are ready, put them in the casserole: pumpkin, carrots, leek and potato. Add salt to your liking. Put the lid in the casserole and let it cook for 25 minutes over medium heat, until the vegetables are soft.
Remove the casserole from the heat and blend everything with the electric mixer until a fine purée is left. Garnish with parsley and a few pumpkin seeds, and (optionally) cream or butter.
About the recipe
The pumpkin is a variety of squash (genus Cucurbita) domesticated in Central America around 10,000 years ago, and brought to Europe by the Spanish colonizers around the 16th century. The flesh, seeds, leaves and flowers are all edible. The fruit has a tough, shiny skin which allows it to be stored through the winter with no processing. It is a very efficient food plant in terms of yield per hectare, especially when grown in combination with climbing beans and maize: the so-called “Three Sisters,” one of the best-known examples of companion planting. The maize provides support for the beans, which supply nitrogen to the other plants, while the pumpkin vines suppress weed growth.
Pumpkins, which are harvested in October, are famous for being carved into jack-o’-lanterns at Hallowe’en (All Saints’ Eve). This celebration of the supernatural and ancestral spirits is of Celtic origin, and was brought to North America by Irish and Scottish immigrants in the 19th century. In many Celtic-influenced areas of Europe, including Asturias and Galicia in northern Spain, jack-o’-lanterns were traditionally made from turnips, not pumpkins, until the festival was re-introduced from the United States in the late twentieth century.