From Rosalind Creasy

Winter squashes are Mexico’s gift to the cooking world. These nutritional powerhouses are not only lusciously delicious and sweet; in the kitchen they are extremely versatile. Over the years I have studied this vegetable and cooked dozens of different types. Today, I would say, my favorites are the sweet butternut, I find it the easiest to peel and the cubes are great for roasting; Kabocha (Japanese chestnut squashes) that have such dense flesh and meatiness that are perfect for baking and pureeing; and, I love the acorn types for their rich mellow flavor that pairs so well with all type of nuts and brown sugar.

In Mexico winter squashes are made into a puree and baked inside empanadas, or bathed in a sugar syrup, then dried, and eaten as a favorite children’s snack. The seeds are roasted and salted or added to candies, even ground into their famous mole sauces.

Early on the explorers introduced this giant vegetable to Europe and soon the Italians were adding winter squash cubes to risotto and soups, and they mashed and seasoned the pulp with herbs and spices to fill raviolis. In gay Paris they use the heirloom pumpkin Rouge Vif d’Etampes to bake a rich leek and cheese soup and create a rich gratin by layering the squash and baking it with cream and hazelnuts.

In this country, for centuries the Native Americans have roasted whole squash in the coals or added the cubes to stews along with venison or turkey and flavored them with chilies. The colonists grew and cooked winter squash as well. They mashed the flesh and sweetened the pulp with sugar or molasses, and sometimes apples were added. This mixture was then made into pies and puddings, which were served as a side dish to the meal with other vegetables and starches. Not until the twentieth century were pies and puddings accepted as dessert items.

If I had to limit myself to three winter squash recipes I would choose the following:

Native Winter Squash Stew

This is recipe based on one given to me by Maheena Drees and Gary Nabham of Native Seed Search years ago. It’s one of my favorite recipes and I make lots of variations.

1 pound organic ground turkey meat
2 tablespoons oil
2 large onions, chopped
4 to 6 cups or organic winter squash, peeled and cubed (Butternut is ideal)
6 to 8 fresh mild green chilies roasted, peeled, and chopped or 2 – 4 ounce cans of diced mild chilies
3 cloves garlic, chopped
3 ears of organic sweet corn, kernels removed or 1 large can niblet corn
Salt and pepper to taste
Optional: 2 peeled tomatoes chopped

In a large cast iron stew pot or skillet, brown the turkey meat in oil with the onions. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer covered over a low heat for 30 to 45 minutes or until the squash is tender.

Serves 4 to 6.
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Potage de Rouge Vif d’Etampes

Rouge Vif d’Etampes is a French heirloom pumpkin reminiscent of Cinderella’s coach. It was introduced to the American market in 1883 by the W. Atlee Burpee Company. While growing in popularity today among heirloom mavens, few know how to cook this delicate-flavored pumpkin. In the 1800’s, Parisian chefs favored it as a base for vegetable stocks. I find it lends itself well to the following rich chowder, served in the French style – in the pumpkin. Serve it as you would a hearty chowder or stew.

6 cups 1-inch cubes of home-made-style white bread
1  (10 to 12-inch) ‘Rouge Vif d’Etampes’ pumpkin or other tasty winter squash
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 pound organic leeks (about 5 medium), white and pale green parts only, finely chopped, (about
5 cups)
1 medium fennel bulb, chopped (about 1 ½ cups)
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon powdered saffron
1 1/2 teaspoons dried thyme
1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
Approximately 6 cups organic vegetable or chicken broth
Approximately 1 1/2 cups half and half
1 1/2 to 2 cups Gruyere cheese in ½-inch cubes (about 1/2 pound)

Preheat the oven to 350º F. Put the bread cubes on cookie sheet and bake them for 10 minutes, stirring once. Remove from the oven and set aside.

Cut a 6-inch diameter lid from the top of the pumpkin. With a sharp metal spoon, scrape out seeds and stringy membranes. Place the pumpkin on a shallow baking pan. If the pumpkin does not sit level on the pan, support the tilting side with a piece of rolled-up aluminum foil.

In a large sauté pan, heat the oil and sauté the leeks, fennel, and garlic until they are tender, about 10 minutes.  Turn off heat and add the saffron, thyme, tarragon, salt, pepper, cayenne, and bread cubes, tossing them to mix thoroughly. Pour in chicken broth and half and half, stir gently and ladle mixture into the pumpkin. The pumpkin should be filled within two inches of the top. Distribute the cheese cubes on top and replace the lid.

Bake the pumpkin for about 1 1/2 hours, then remove the lid and bake for another 1/2 hour or until the pumpkin flesh is tender and the cheese is golden brown. Watch carefully as the pumpkin will fall apart if over-cooked.

Using two large spatulas, transfer the pumpkin to a large, warm serving platter or bowl. To serve, use a large serving spoon to scoop out some of the soup into each bowl, then scrape some of the flesh from the pumpkin and add it to the soup. Be careful to not go through the skin, as the liquid will leak out.

Serves 4
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Baked Winter Squash with Maple Nut/Seed Butter

A wonderful compliment to squash is a nut or seed butter. The rich flavors seem meant for each other. You can make your own nut or seed butter, or many types are available in natural foods and specialty stores.

Basic baking directions are given below; the time will vary and the number of people served will depend on the size and variety of squash.

2 organic acorn or other small squash (about 1 1/4 pound each), OR 1
medium butternut squash (about 2 1/2 pounds)
3 tablespoons each dairy butter, nut or seed butter, and maple syrup

Place squash on a baking pan and bake at 350 F. for 3/4 to 1 1/2 hours, or until soft. You may want to turn the squash a couple of times for more even cooking. Cut in half and remove seeds, (save to wash and toast for snacks if you like), and strings; if using 1 squash, cut again to make 4 servings. Put back on baking pan cut sides up. In a small saucepan, melt dairy butter, add nut or seed butter and syrup, and stir to mix.

Spoon mixture into squash cavities and coat surfaces. Return to oven for about 10 minutes to heat through before serving.

Serves 4
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See also Jeff’s All About Winter Squash (Organic Recipes)
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Rosalind Creasy is author of Rosalind Creasy’s Recipes From The Garden: 200 Exciting Recipes from the Author of the Complete Book of Edible Landscaping and many others.
Images Credit: Rosalind Creasy
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From Greg Atkinson

Over the years, I have gradually reinvented the ham I remember from childhood. That one was pierced with cloves and studded with pineapple rings and maraschino cherries. This one is sleek and finished with a simple glaze. One thing it shares with my grandfather’s ham is the bottle of beer poured into the bottom of the roasting pan to provide braising liquid. For the best flavor, I buy a naturally raised ham like the Applewood Smoked Ham from Niman Ranch. It’s expensive, but this is a special occasion dish, perfect for a family gathering.

Makes 12 servings, with leftovers

1 fully cooked, bone-in half ham, 7 to 8 pounds

One 12-ounce bottle lager beer

1 cup brown sugar

1. Bring the ham up to room temperature by removing it from the refrigerator at least an hour before baking. Preheat the oven to 300°F. Score the ham on the fatty side, cutting about 1/8 inch deep in a crisscross pattern.

2. Place the scored ham, fatty side up, in a 9- by 13-inch roasting pan and pour the beer into the pan around the ham. Cover the pan with baker’s parchment and then with aluminum foil, tucking the foil in at the edges of the pan to create a seal. Bake the ham until an instant-read thermometer registers 110°F when inserted into the meatiest part of the ham, about 1½ hours.

3. Remove the ham from the oven, take it out of the pan, and pour the juices that have accumulated in the pan into a small saucepan. Ladle off any excess fat and stir in the brown sugar. Cook over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved to make a glaze.

4. Put the ham back in the pan. Pour the glaze over the surface of the ham. Put the ham back in the oven and bake, uncovered, until it is heated through and the glaze is caramelized, about 30 minutes. Allow the ham to rest at room temperature for 10 minutes before slicing.
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See also Dave’s Keeping Pigs and Making Sweet Bacon
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Greg Atkinson is author of West Coast Cooking, and The Northwest Essentials Cookbook, and lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Greg is Culinary Director of OrganicToGo.
Image Credit: © Vladimir Surkov | Dreamstime.com
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From Jesse Cool

There are a handful of standard recipes that I have taught my children, knowing that no matter where or what situation, they can create from scratch something that will make people happy. I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t like warm biscuits. These drop-biscuits are the easiest to prepare, with no need for kneading or rolling of the dough. My sons prepare them often.

1 cup organic buttermilk
1 organic egg beaten
1 tablespoon organic lemon zest
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh rosemary
2 cups organic whole grain pastry flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup cold organic butter

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a small bowl, combine the buttermilk, egg, lemon zest, and rosemary.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Grate the butter into the mixture. Using your hands or a pastry blender, work the butter into the flour mixture until the pieces are about the size of peas. Form a well in the center of the flour mixture and stir in the buttermilk mixture just until blended.

Drop the batter by large tablespoons onto the prepared baking sheet to form 12 biscuits. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until golden and a wooden pick inserted in the center of a biscuit comes out clean.
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See also Jesse’s Creamy Organic Autumn Soup Recipe
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Jesse Cool is author of Simply Organic: A Cookbook for Sustainable, Seasonal, and Local Ingredients and many others, is owner of CoolEatz Restaurants and Catering, and lives in Menlo Park, California.
Image Credit: © Anna Khomulo | Dreamstime.com
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From Gene Logsdon (1992)

I’m a hayseed, I’m a hayseed,
and my ears are full of pigweed.
How they flop in stormy weather—
gosh oh hemlock, tough as leather…

—From a children’s rhyme heard in the Midwest in the 1930s and forties.

Most of us grew up in a society where farmer was often merely a synonym for moron, and I am quite sure that many farmers are still haunted by feelings of inferiority laid on them by this kind of urban and urbane prejudice. In fact, I suspect that many of the most competent farmers among us continue to expand their farm empires not out of greed or an insatiable desire for wealth, but because they feel compelled to prove again and again that, by God, they are not inferior to anyone. They want to cram that fact as far down the throats of their boyhood taunters as they can, and, sadly, they spend their lives doing it.

In my high school days in the late forties, supercilious town girls routinely claimed that milking cows caused hands to grow too large and rough and the reason farmers had big feet was that they went barefoot too much. Lord help the girl who wore a print dress made from a grain sack, although the dresses were as pretty as any. A boy who came to school with chicken manure on his shoes, as could easily happen, or with the smell (real or imagined) of the cow stable on his clothes, instantly became an object of derision. Wearing bib overalls, which, ironically, are all the urban rage right now, brought automatic jeers, and after a while we refused to wear them, even at home. When the school lunch program came along, country children whose mothers packed a lunch for them, believing for some strange reason that parents, not the government, should feed their children, were restricted to a separate part of the lunchroom, and this separation soon carried with it a stigma not unlike the segregation of blacks in “their own place.” Farm work was in all cases put down as “nigger work” and it was too bad, we were told, that redneck country kids were condemned to it. One of our textbooks, with all good intentions, I’m sure, had a chapter entitled “Farm Folk Are Human, Too.” My mother, half-amused and half-dismayed, showed that page to my father. He took one look and hurled the book across the floor.

We farm kids came to school possessing intricate and valuable knowledge about manual arts, food production skills, and the ways of nature—all of which our urban counterparts desperately lacked, as is now apparent from the actions of well-meaning animal rightists and overzealous environmentalists; yet most of the teachers not only ignored this treasure trove of information, but belittled it as having no relevance to life. Kamyar Enshayan, of the Sustainable Agriculture Program at Ohio State University, calls this “paradigm negation” and says that rural students coming into the university are still treated as if what they have learned at home, from tradition or through farm experience, is of no importance. “This is, in fact, the way colonial powers always treat their colonies as a way of stripping them of their identity and destroying their independence,” he says. “Farmers don’t yet realize it, but rural areas have become no more than colonies from which cities are sucking the wealth.”

In high school we accepted the urban prejudices against us in a solid, simmering silence that erupted into rebellion only once that I recall—a violent, bloody fistfight in the lobby of our local theater. The fight started when a “townie” called one of us a “clodhopper” once too often.

It wasn’t so long ago, really, that that kind of prejudice was perpetuated all over America. We who are now in our forties and fifties bear the scars of these prejudices as part of what Wendell Berry, the poet and farmer, calls “the hidden wound” in his book by that title. And we know, like the blacks know, that the prejudice is far from gone: it has only become more slyly silken in its displays. Though the scars have healed, they ache whenever the cultural weather shifts.

Some farmers flaunt the prejudice by wearing dirty clothes to the bank to borrow a quarter of a million dollars. Others over-compensate by dressing up to look “respectable” for the banker. That’s also why they get the car washed every time they’re in town. Some want to be called “agribusinesspeople” rather than farmers even if it does take half an hour to get that word out. Almost all of us are suckers for the “urban counterpart” argument. Salespeople know that a good way to get a farmer to buy their product is to hint that it will enable us to live “more like your urban counterpart.” Those who follow that allurement to its logical conclusion become urban counterparts, because it is patently impossible for a farmer to live like a city person.

How many generations does it take to heal the scars of prejudice completely? I wonder. I have a notion that prejudice is never eradicated, just transferred. When the “hillbillies” moved into our county from Kentucky during World War II, the focus of urban prejudice switched to them because they were even more “rural” than we were. Nursing our wounds, we farmers, who should have been sympathetic, joined with the townspeople in inflicting the wound on them. When the Mexican fieldworkers came, another segment of society colonized out of its own farm traditions, the “hillbillies” joined us, glad no longer to be at the bottom of the pecking order. Although there are hardly any blacks in our county, they are still referred to broadly as “niggars” by more than a few whites including most farmers; and “niggars” are still thought to be oversexed beyond control. I suspect, in fact, that farmers tend to hold on to such hoary racial prejudices in retaliation against their own hidden wound. Misery loves company.

Our county has just come through a nasty school consolidation fight in which, as usual, the bureaucracy won and the farmers lost. The school in the village of Harpster was closed (along with another township school). Being on the task force that undertook to study the matter, I was involved up to my ears (how they flop in stormy weather) in that battle. I had all the available figures pertinent to the school closing, and those figures did not show that there were any savings to be had by closing the Harpster school. Nor was there any proof that consolidating the schools meant better education. (In fact, nationally, more and more evidence points to quite the opposite conclusion.) Not even population decline could be cited as a reason for closing the Harpster school, because the area was gaining population. But argument was futile since the state of Ohio, like most states, is committed to consolidation. And latent in that policy is a contempt for rural people. Wayne Fuller, a professor of history at the University of Texas, has soundly documented this contempt in his recent book The Old Country School. In order to gain control of the independent school districts, professional educators undertook a campaign, beginning in the nineteenth century and intensifying in the twentieth, to discredit country schools in the eyes of state legislators. The professionals, often bluntly, said that farmers were too ignorant to be capable of running schools. Fuller points out that in most cases, the farmers’ ideas about education turned out to be better than the professional educators’, and that in following the latter’s course, we now have a large percentage of our population that can’t even read intelligently. My friend Craig Bowman who with his sons farms about 4,000 acres today, was a leader in both of the futile fights to save Harpster’s high school in 1960 and its elementary school in 1990. He nods when I tell him about Fuller’s book. “One reason we lost those battles, especially in 1960, was that many farmers half-believed that those yahoos in the state education department knew more about what was good for their children than they did, and they wouldn’t stand up to them. Of course. Society trained them that way.”

Even in our rural county, teachers encourage students not to think of themselves as coming from Harpster, or Marseilles, or any of our little villages or townships, but from the Upper Sandusky School District, which is perceived as a nobler root from which to spring. “Big is better” is a myth behind the myth that country people are somehow second-rate. And that may be why farmers so readily embraced the slogan “Get big or get out.”

But it is not necessary to blame education for the prejudice against farmers, since television, the real educating force in America, reinforces the myth with one prime-time show after another. The bigotry is not even veiled. Night after night, one dramatic episode or another will follow the adventures of a character who just had to get out of a “backward” rural area in favor of the, tah-dah, City. Getting out of rural areas for fame and fortune persists as a story motif even though it flies utterly in the face of reality. The competent farmers and businesspeople who stayed in our county are at least as financially successful as their peers who went to the city, and they don’t have to pay $300,000 for a $90,000 home, either. As one refugee back here from the big city says: “As for the cultural advantages of the city, who needs the traffic hassle? Electronics brings ‘cultural advantages’  to one’s home, wherever it may be.” (The “cultural advantages of the city” is another side of the prejudice against farmers. Why does no one speak of the cultural advantages of the country? For example, is a well groomed, ecologically kept, sustainably fertile farm any less cultural, any less artful, than paintings of fat angels on church ceilings?)

I am sure that the reason for the prejudice so many farmers exhibit against the Amish (the most biased like to infer, with a snicker, that Amish women are oversexed, like black people) is that their lifestyle unwittingly jabs at our hidden wound. The Amish remind us of ourselves fifty years ago, when we lived much like they do now and were ridiculed for it. And it is embarrassing to us that the Amish prove we could all make a decent living in farming by not trying to live like our urban counterparts.

What is so curious about the inanity of prejudice against farmers is that it exists right alongside the opposite prejudice: that farmers are the moral backbone of society. Farmers, of course (including the Amish), can be just as ornery as anyone else. This overly favorable image gains more credence the farther it is removed from agriculture. The wealthy townhouse dweller who has seldom been anywhere except Manhattan and Bermuda (and, as a result, is far more provincial than most farmers), thinks of the “man of the soil” as a kind of yeoman saint in overalls, working without surcease in the peace and quiet of God’s country to feed the world. This image lasts until said townhouser builds a million-dollar home in the country and the farmer next door starts spreading manure. The age-old contempt quickly returns and any farmers who must try to “feed the world” next to suburbs are not even allowed to work in their fields after dark.

The prejudice against farmers carries far from the farm. A New York City magazine editor cannot keep from displaying just a tad of superiority when talking about the work of a farm writer like myself. Usually it is more than a tad. When a Camden, New Jersey, columnist reviewed my book about Andrew Wyeth, which I wrote in 1970 while I was an editor at Farm Journal, she wrote most kindly but expressed surprise that such writing could come from someone who worked on a farm magazine! We farm writers, nursing our wound, aid and abet that prejudice ourselves: invariably, when one of our associates leaves our ranks for work in another field of journalism, we say that he or she graduated to a higher rung on the ladder. Why is Time more important than Farm Journal? It is difficult for the urban mind to swallow the fact that a renowned poet and essayist like Wendell Berry, or an accomplished musician like Elmo Reed, is also a bona fide farmer.

This low opinion of our work causes many farmers to see their land as nothing more than a factory or mine or “resource” from which to extract money. They remain unaware of its exquisite beauty, its natural wonders, and its potential as a sanctuary for the recreation of the human spirit. They ignore its natural pleasures in favor of faraway vacation spots: the same farmer who gasps in awe at a redstart in Cuba (once it is pointed out to him) does not know that the same bird visits his Ohio farm every spring and fall. The farmer who destroys the wild sanctuaries of his own farm uses the money to hunt and fish in Canada. He dines lavishly in gourmet restaurants on food that is not nearly as “farm-fresh,” “free-range,” or “organically pure” as the meats and vegetables he could grow in his own backyard and barnyard. Eschewing the good life of his own farm, he eschews the good life of his own neighborhood. His barn is no longer full of laughing, romping children or grandchildren, his hillsides no longer echo the happy cries of sledders, his pond no longer draws the swimmers and ice skaters of his community. There is no community. The neighbors have all gone to the city. The village churches and schools and taverns and inns that once were scenes of far more delight than the boring, manufactured uniformity of tourism are boarded up.

If we farmers deny the magnificence of our own rurality, how can we blame urban society for treating us the same way?

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See also Gene’s Just What We Need: Faster Tractors
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Gene and Carol Logsdon have a small-scale experimental farm in Wyandot County, Ohio.
Gene is author ofThe Mother of All Arts: Agrarianism and the Creative Impulse (Culture of the Land),
The Last of the Husbandmen: A Novel of Farming Life, and All Flesh Is Grass: Pleasures & Promises Of Pasture Farming
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From Lisa Barnes

I love visiting a pumpkin patch this time of year. Not the kind with a jumpy and a row of look alike pumpkins. But a real patch at a working farm with tractors, hay rides, animals, u-pick pumpkins, potato digging (my kids with their prizes), hay maze, cow milking and every variety of pumpkin and squash imaginable.

This is, of course, a fun Fall ritual, but also a great teaching opportunity to show your kids (especially those from the city) how a farm works.  We know how precious small farms are to our nation’s communities.  At this year’s Slow Food Nation event there was a wake-up call to encourage more to become involved in farming and teaching, and how vital it is for our food safety, health, environment and economy.  On the farm kids can see the balance and relationship of people, land and animal (and also appreciate how hard the people and animals work).

Across the nation there are many farms as well as farmer’s markets that have special pumpkin and harvest activities that are great for families with curious children. Besides pumpkins, autumn is also the time to find Asian pears, apples, persimmons, pomegranates, grapes, and winter squashes (butternut, acorn). To find a pumpkin patch and/or farmer’s market in your area go to LocalHarvest.

My family tradition for the past three years is to head to Peter’s Pumpkin Patch at Spring Hill Cheese Goat Creamery in Petaluma, California.  Most years we have visiting grandparents with us to share the experience as well.  Last year my son (4 at the time) asked his grandma where the “gutters” were, when approaching a milking cow.  This year my daughter (age 2) cried when we went to leave.  We asked her what was troubling her and she said she needed to see Jessie again (the same milking cow).  A big favorite activity, after getting lost in the hay maze, but before taking a wheelbarrow into the pumpkin field is eating homemade ice cream.  Not just any ice cream, but pumpkin ice cream.  This is one of my all-time favorite tastes.  While my version doesn’t do the creamery justice, I’ve included my recipe below.

Organic Pumpkin Ice Cream Recipe

Makes 1 quart

Sweet Cream Base:

2 cups organic heavy cream
1 cup organic milk
2 cage free organic eggs
3/4 cups sugar

Whisk eggs in mixing bowl.  Whisk in sugar, a little at a time until blended.  Whisk in cream and milk.

Ice Cream:

1 cup canned organic pumpkin
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Pour 1/2 sweet cream base into a second bowl.  Mix in pumpkin until blended well.  Stir in cinnamon and nutmeg.  Add remaining sweet cream base.

Place mixture into ice cream maker and freeze per manusfacturer’s directions.
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See also LIsa’s Happy HallowGreen – Roasted Organic Pumpkin Seeds Recipe
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Lisa Barnes is author of The Petit Appetit Cookbook: Easy, Organic Recipes to Nurture Your Baby and Toddler, Williams-Sonoma: Cooking For Baby, and lives in Sausalito, California.
Image Credit: Soybeans © Norman Chan | Dreamstime.com
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