Battle of the Butternut

It's that time of year.

The airwaves are filled with cooking shows, the history of cross-cultural meetings between the Wampanoags and the Pilgrims, the culinary history of our forefathers (and let's be real, it was our foreMOTHERS doing that cooking!), etc.

Now, in many of these "historical" reviews, a substance is mentioned that strikes fear into many a modern cook: butternut squash.

I don't think I've tuned in (or tried to tune out) to even one of these programs, without hearing butternut squash on the list.

But the real question is - how?

Now, there's no denying that butternut squash is versatile, healthy and great bounty of autumn. And the fact that it's a native plant makes it very pleasant to stick with local produce.

But how the heck did the original Americans and original Europeans get the darned things open?

Smash them against rocks?

Drop them from great heights?

Well, I guess they must have charred or boiled them and then tried to deal with the skin.

Now, I'm wondering about the legitimacy of this blog's subject matter, and probably need to hang up my chef's hat, but still...

Butternut squash does this cook in.

Yesterday, I was standing in my somewhat newly-refurbished kitchen (that's for another entry), with my new hollow-steel Henckels 7" santoku (the most expensive and most lethal knife that I've owned to this moment), a non-slip cutting board, and the sheer strength of muscles well-honed by hours of weight training, and the damned squash almost won. The peeling itself wasn't so bad, but cutting the thing open almost left various of my extremities scattered around the floor.

If they chose "Battle of the Butternut Squash" for Iron Chef America or Japan, they'd have to spend the whole show hacking these things to pieces and all they'd do for the hour is prep.

Alright, so my ginger-scented, squash blah-blah soup is finally ready and pureed, the flavors seeping together so that I can serve a large number of guests tonight, and yes, the fresh stuff tastes better, but should a vegetable ever, really better a human being in a battle of strength and wits?

Happy Thanksgiving to All, and a salute to those first battlers of the butternut.

What's Cooking

We are having yet more guests tonight, because a Thanksgiving dinner just isn't enough for one week... "Ginger-scented Squash Apple Soup", Stilton Bread Pudding, Salad with cranberries, pine nuts and a strawberry vinaigrette dressing, cranberry pecan bread and lemon tartlets, chocolate petit fours and clementines for dessert.