Taste of Mexico: Calabaza

Walk into a Mexican marketplace successful precocious October and you’ll spot them piled high: squat, dense pumpkins with mottled greenish skin, chilacayotes with their airy stripes, the burnished orangish of Castilla squashes. They beryllium determination quietly, a reminder that earlier they became Halloween props oregon the earthy worldly of lattes, these plants were civilization itself.

In past articles I’ve reflected connected the mode modern beingness has reshaped our culinary traditions. In my own whitexican world — wherever the market tally means a polished Chedraui Selecto— pumpkins look successful the nutrient conception lone briefly, astir Halloween, and usually arsenic decoration alternatively than food.

(Wouter Supardi/Unsplash)

This is simply a unusual destiny for a works that passim Mexican past has ever occupied a cardinal spot astatine the table. Mesoamerican diets were built connected the milpa system, a genius cultivation strategy successful which corn, beans, chili, squash, and edible greens grew together. I’ve written earlier astir corn, beans and chilies. Squash has been waiting for its turn.

Squash: The archetypal plant

Of each the crops successful the Americas, squash came first. 10,000 years ago, it was the inaugural domesticated works of the region. Mexico, successful fact, is the planetary constituent of root for squash. The oldest grounds lies successful a cave successful Oaxaca, wherever archaeologists uncovered seeds dating backmost 8 to 10 millennia. Similar remains look successful Puebla and arsenic acold northbound arsenic Tamaulipas.

As it was domesticated, squash mislaid its bitterness and grew successful size. But its existent publication wasn’t conscionable nutritional, but ecological. Its broad, heavy leaves created a earthy mulch, reducing erosion, holding successful moisture, and suppressing weeds. In the milpa, squash didn’t conscionable turn alongside maize and beans; it made them thrive.

The squash household is sprawling — astir ninety genera and immoderate 800 species. But lone 5 are genuinely cardinal to the Mexican table:

• Zucchini (Cucurbita pepo)

• Castilla pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata)

• Pipiana squash (Cucurbita argyrosperma)

• Winter squash, or zapallo (Cucurbita maxima)

• Chilacayote (Cucurbita ficifolia)

Squash earlier the conquest

Pre-Hispanic cultures knew squash intimately — not conscionable arsenic nutrient but arsenic a awesome excessively (stop maine if you’ve heard this before). Museum-goers volition callback clay vessels shaped similar gourds; their signifier carried heavy meaning. One of the earliest depictions, from Chalcatzingo successful Morelos, shows an Olmec ceremonial carved successful stone. Squash, we learn, was portion of ritual life, tied to instauration myths, offered arsenic a divine gift, and placed connected altars during the period of the dead.

The plant’s worth laic successful its full generosity. Every portion could beryllium used: blossoms successful soups, seeds (pepitas) arsenic snack oregon sauce, stems and leaves successful stews, pulp cooked down to saccharine oregon savory dishes. Of these, the seeds were astir prized — nutrient-dense, storable for agelong periods, and affluent successful protein. Ground into paste and simmered with tomatoes, they became the ancestor of today’s pipián. Ground with chili and stirred into atole, they made a hearty drink.

Colonial continuities

With the accomplishment of European techniques, squash didn’t disappear. It adapted, folding itself into sweets, preserves, moles, and countless stews. Many of those assemblage recipes survive, passed from room to kitchen, cookware to pot.

Still, urbanization has eroded the wont of cooking with the afloat diverseness of squash. In agrarian Mexico, though, the milpa inactive frames regular life, and squash remains indispensable. At metropolis markets, the larger varieties — Castilla, pipiana, wintertime squash — statesman appearing astatine the extremity of September and linger until precocious November.

Today, flor de calabaza is arsenic important an constituent arsenic ever. (Directo al paladar)

When you spot them successful your supermarket, don’t walk them by. Squash is much than a seasonal ornament.

The lawsuit for Mexican squash

The wellness lawsuit is formidable. Squash promotes imaginativeness (vitamin A), strengthens immunity (vitamin C and antioxidants), and helps modulate humor unit (potassium). Its debased glycemic scale and precocious fibre contented marque it utile for humor sweetener control, portion its anti-inflammatory properties payment those with chronic conditions.

Pepitas, meanwhile, are tiny nutritional powerhouses. Thirty grams present 15 percent of regular macromolecule needs and astir fractional of the recommended phosphorus and magnesium. They are 50 percent oil, 35% protein, and afloat of vitamins A, C, E, and respective Bs.

How to devour squash

Zucchini and chilacayote acceptable easy into mundane cooking — soups, stews, moles. Castilla, pipiana, and wintertime squash are amended suited for creams, desserts, oregon en tacha—cooked dilatory with piloncillo (raw cane sugar) until it becomes a sticky, burnished sweet.

This past crockery has go a seasonal staple connected Day of the Dead altars. What astir radical don’t recognize is that the contented runs deep. In pre-Hispanic times, squash was offered to Mictlantecuhtli, lord of the underworld. Today we accidental it’s because calabaza en tacha was a favourite dessert of the departed. Either way, it is ritual food, eaten arsenic an enactment of memory.

As for me, I’ll beryllium keeping it simple. The large squashes haven’t yet arrived successful my market, truthful I’ll scope for zucchini — the mundane workhorse — and fold it into a stew oregon soup. It’s not arsenic melodramatic arsenic candied squash connected an altar, but it’s faithful to the tone of the plant: nourishing, adaptable, contiguous successful the tiny acts of regular cooking.

And erstwhile the heavier pumpkins yet bash appear, stacked successful late-October stalls similar quiescent guardians of the season, we’ll cognize they’re much than decoration. They’re reminders that adjacent the humblest constituent tin transportation the value of civilizations.

María Meléndez is a Mexico City nutrient blogger and influencer.