Squash: A Country Garden Cookbook

Introduction + sample recipes

(If you’d like to buy a signed copy after this taste, please email writeme@gastropoda.com. Thanx!)

I came late to the squash fan club. Although my childhood was spent in the Southwest, where some of these versatile vegetables originated, I don’t remember eating more than pumpkin on a regular basis. My mother did her vegetable gardening in the canned goods aisle at the local grocery, and pumpkin was a staple only because all our neighbors were Mexicans who didn’t wait around for Thanksgiving to eat it. They baked it into sweet empanadas all year. They savored the seeds, roasted and salted, as pepitas. And they even taught us to eat the blossoms off the vine, battered and deep-fried.

But it was not until I ripened into a professional eater in New York City that my own appetite for squash truly bloomed. Partly it was piqued by exposure, since so many restaurants — international and American — showcase squash in everything from soup to tarts, from risotto to enchiladas. But it was also stimulated by availability. Any produce stand now routinely stocks a minimum of six to eight varieties, in every shape and color.

When I went off a decade ago to train as a chef, I had never tasted even a squash as mundane as a butternut. My addiction started during class when Stephanie, the one student more interested in restaurant management than cooking, produced what she justifiably boasted was the best of the day. It was nothing more than a simple puree of butternut with a bit of honey, a little butter and fresh thyme, but it was simply spectacular.

The lesson from then on has been that great squash has little to do with the cook and everything to do with the ingredient. No expertise is needed to cut a delicata in half and bake it. The flavor stands alone.