Disembowelling Jack.
A special weekend at my cousin's wedding was additionally enjoyed through the inclusion of various conversations with my extended family pertaining to growing and cooking good [and organic or local] food. Before I headed back to DC this morning, a detour past my uncle's house earned me a pretty orange passenger - I'll call him Jack. The topic of earlier conversation, Jack had been plucked from a pumpkin plant that was currently overtaking my Uncle's backyard. I skipped merrily back to my car and buckled him in safely. I had a date in mind for us later this week...
After stopping at the grocery store (a place I frequent less and less nowadays, thanks to the FarM's that run throughout the week) for some essentials like peanut butter and Kosher salt, I planted some flowers and shrubbery my parents had given to me at the wedding. With no lawn, my garden is rather small at this point of my life. But there are little victories: my parsley will be growing soon. Someday I'll have a decent-sized vegetable garden and some chickens.
Front Door Garden:
My Sunday night plans included making a batch of mozzarella and then some eggplant parmigiana with eggplants and tomatoes from my grandfather's garden, but I had problems with the milk and all of the non-curds had to be trashed (maybe Lucerne is ultra-pasteurized?). Instead of heating up leftovers in my dismay, I decided that tonight was going to be the night to try a recipe from Barbara Kingsolver's 'Animal Vegetable Miracle', after all. "Pumpkin Soup in Its Own Shell" seemed pretty straightforward: milk, broth, roasted garlic, salt, pepper and fresh sage baked in a cleaned pumpkin. (While waiting for my garlic to roast on top of the stove, I roasted Jack's seeds in the oven with cayenne and salt!)
Before Jack's Roast:
There was one danger posed by the author: cooked too long, the entire turrine might collapse! I checked on Jack every 10min for his 1hr and 10min roast. I gently scraped the inside walls making sure not to cut too deep with my spoon. What resulted was a deliciously salty and garlicky soup with stringy pumpkin floating at the top.
After Roasting:
To better incorporate the stringy pumpkin insides into their soup, I violated Jack with my immersion blender (I apologize for the vulgarity of this post). Helping only a little, I decided to re-scrape the inside walls. I found them softer at this point and was able to extract a large amount of less-stringy meat. Happy with my final product, I started to ladle my soup into some tupperware for the week. Upon reaching Jack's bottom, I determined the whole base to be loose from the walls. Extracting it, I discovered the most deliciously tender meat to be found on this particular boy.
Bottomless Jack:
At this point, as seen in the picture to the left, Jack had been relieved of his soup and his bottom. Maybe I should have stopped there ... but I went on to disembowel Jack of all the meat he had to offer. As it happens, there was A LOT more to be had. I left him in ruins on my cutting board and confess to even going so far as to sample his bronzed and tender skin.
Oh the shame and horror!
In her book, Barbara Kingsolver speaks of the pumpkin as a true American food source that's history and use we are losing to Halloween and Fall lawn-ornament scenes. Though a bit labor intensive, I will have delicious (and different) lunches, dinners and snacks for the next few days thanks to Jack. It's still hot outside, but I'm very ready for this Fall's bounty of squashes and pumpkins!
