A Stroll Through the Garden: Pumpkins and their role in America's past

Two weeks ago, I got some questions from several sources about pumpkins. A friend from the pool asked me what I knew about pumpkins. Since pumpkins are a native American vegetable, I examined how an Indian might grow them. Over the years I have grown pumpkins and done many things with them. My friend had the opportunity to do a little traveling around the state and enjoy some of what this state has to offer.

One of the things my friend did was to go to the Circleville Pumpkin Show. This festival has been celebrated since 1903 after Mayor George Haswell set the first celebration in motion. As my friend toured the festival, he saw some very unusual things — amongst them the blue-ribbon pumpkin, which came in at 2,388.5 pounds, an Ohio state record, grown by Bob and Jo Liggett. I think this qualifies as a great pumpkin.

Have you ever noticed zoo animals just love to eat pumpkins? What I find surprising is that pumpkins are fed to many of the zoo animals across our country. Personally, the only thing that I can think of when it comes to eating pumpkin is the pie. This leads me to the second thing that my friend saw at the festival which was a 4-foot diameter pumpkin pie. Wow! Right?

Well, that is not the record. The record pumpkin pie was made for the 100th anniversary in 2006. A local baker contracted with the event to bake the largest pie at 14 feet in diameter and it required 360 pounds of sugar, 795 pounds of pumpkin, 60 pounds of powdered milk, 60 dozen eggs, 75 gallons of water, 400 pounds of flour, 15 people to mix, and 10 hours to bake! The current pumpkin pie was not that involved.

Native American cooks such as Buffalo Bird Woman did not spend 10 hours to bake their pumpkins like the people in Circleville. A recipe that I came across was one the women of the Hidatsa tribe would cook for their families in North Dakota.

I can pass along the recipe if you drop me an email. What I like is that this recipe is loaded with native-type foods like the sugar, pumpkin, ground venison or buffalo, onions, eggs, wild rice, dried mustard, sage, pepper and a little more. They clean out the pumpkin and bake the mixture in the pumpkin shell. These North Dakota Indians were practical in how they would cook and plant pumpkins.

Buffalo Bird Woman, who lived from 1839-1932, recounted how the Hidatsa women would plant squash, including pumpkins. Squash seed was planted in early June or the latter part of May. In preparation for the planting, they would first sprout the seed.

Here's what Buffalo Bird Woman reported:

“I cut out a piece of tanned buffalo robe about 2-and-a-half feet long and 18 inches wide and spread it on the floor of the lodge, fur side up. I took some red-grass leaves, wetted them, and spread them out flat, matted together in a thin layer on the fur. Then I opened my bag of squash seeds. And having set a bowl of water besides me, wet the seeds in the water — not soaking them, just wetting them — on the matted grass leaves until I had a little pile heaped up, in quantity about two double-handfuls. I next took broad-leaved sage, the kind we use in sweat lodge, and buck brush leaves and mixed them together. At squash planting time, the sage is about 4 inches high. Into the mass of mixed sage-and-buck-brush leaves, I worked the wetted squash seeds until they were distributed well through it. The mass I then laid on the grass matting, which I folded over and around it. Finally, I folded the buffalo skin over that, making a package about 15 and 18 inches. We called the package kaku’I kida’kci, squash-thing-bound, or squash bundle.”

“This squash bundle I hung on the drying pole near one of the posts. The bundle did not hang directly over the fire, but a little to one side. I would examine the seeds so that they would not spoil. After two days I took the bundle down and opened it. From a horn spoon I sipped water into my mouth and blew it over the seeds. I took care that the water was neither too hot nor too cold, lest it kill the seeds. I rebound the bundle and hung it up again on the drying pole. At the end of another day the seeds were sprouted nearly an inch and were ready to plant. I took a handful of the grass-and-leaves and from them separated the sprouted squash seeds. A wooden bowl had been placed beside me with a little moist earth in it. Into this bowl I put the seeds, sprinkling a little earth over them to keep them moist. I was now ready to begin planting.”

For me, I have been re-examining the nutrient values of the foods that I have been eating and see if I need a change. I came across this article on how the pumpkin should be included in my diet. In one full cup of cooked pumpkin you can find only 49 calories, 0.2 gram of fat, and 12 grams of carbs. Because of the nutrient density, variety of uses and sweet taste, we need to consider adding pumpkin to our diets. There are many more reasons to eat pumpkins.

Hope you have a great stroll through your garden this week. As I have been saying for some time, maybe we need to take a closer look at our gardens for the potential that they have for each of us.Drop an email to ericlarson546@yahoo.com. Soon you can find my column in the form of blogs at ohiohealthyfoodcooperative.org. Thank you for participating in our column.

Eric Larson of Jeromesville is a veteran landscaper and gardening enthusiast and a founding board member of the Ohio Chapter of Association of Professional Landscape Designers.

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: A great pumpkin, a large pie and Buffalo Bird Woman