Don't throw out those mushy pumpkins!

[p38thadl]

A couple years ago, I left two decorative fall pumpkins in a flower bed past Thanksgiving. I already had more than enough pumpkin in the freezer. (Is this not why we invented Jack-o-lanterns?) But after the pumpkins had frozen and thawed and started to deflate, I had regrets. I still wanted those seeds -- yum, roasted in a low oven on an insulated pan, with oil and salt...

Surprise! one of the pumpkins, opened in the usual way, was filled with fluid. I splashed some on my razor burn after scooping out seeds for examination, because I was learning to shave, and I was going to have to wipe my hands on something anyway. It felt nice!

So I dumped it through a strainer and froze it, for bathroom dermatological research. Though "pumpkin ferment" is a valued cosmeceutical ingredient, in things that cost $30+ for a tiny jar. it did not occur to me that my mushy pumpkin could be an example of wild fermentation. But as I began telling others of my discovery, my brother-in-law recollected seeing pigs get drunk eating soft pumpkins!

I made my Thanksgiving pie fthis year from freeze-fractured pumpkin flesh, when I found it wasn't soggy enough inside to harvest juice, and it seemed extra smooth. Could this simply be the manner in which nature intended pumpkins to be consumed?

I still use the juice as a nighttime exfoliator/anti-aging toner. (The pros say not to wear retinoid+AHA in sunlight, and it did turn a boo-boo on my shin into a dark brown circle of post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation.) It aids extraction of nose pores by making the follicles more plastic, able to be deformed without injury. It's better than vinegar as a hair treatment.

[p38thadl]

The weather hasn't been cooperarting too well this year, but after taking the next-flattest pumpkin in from the freezing porch, collecting the juice and harvesting the seeds, I experimented with cooking the mushy pulp. Laying cut pieces skin down, I scraped and peeled with my fingertips. Raw was not appealing, but palatable. I tossed the soggy flesh into a pot, added a little water, and set it to simmer on low heat while baking some chicken pieces.

Nobody liked it, but I thought it was a step up from the typical, completely liquified pulp. Any mashed squash makes me gag. Also boiled spinach, which it tasted like. If I had mixed it in very well with their rice, which was also fairly orange, it might have passed as a stealth veggie.

THE VEGETABLE FORMERLY KNOWN AS "PIE PUMPKIN"

After being frozen on the porch, I left one to sit indoors in a small bucket, deflate and ooze, until a yeast bloom appeared on said ooze. Then the black moldy top was removed and discarded directly; the rest picked apart with fingers, yielding

1/2 cup seeds
(potentially 3/4, this one had many undeveloped)
1 2/3 cup fermented juice
1 1/3 cup flavorful flesh
(2 servings)

I did not have any sense of the natural capacity of my stomach, but cooked for 4 minutes in the microwave, topped with salt, kombucha vinegar, and butter (again, using spinach as a model), I dug in with gusto, and after eating 2/3 cup, suddenly felt satiated. To eat more would be sickening. There were some bitter bites in there, too, as I don't think the mold contributed anything good... but I don't think it was about that.

It is said that chickens fed fermented seed eat less. I also found a blog from a pumpkin fan claiming, among other things, that the nutritive value of a pumpkin increases as it decomposes.

http://www.ecellulitis.com/think-twice- ... rue-value/

I believe this wholeheartedly, as I simultaneously roasted seeds taken, jack-o-lantern style, from a "fresh" (actually, better thought of as mummified) pumpkin that had never been let to freeze). Even though less developed physically, the flavor of the fermented pumpkin was much stronger, and the acid caused much more internal browning for the same level of external doneness. The larger, more preserved seeds were bland and starchy, despite having been left in salt brine for a couple days.

SECOND TIME'S THE CHARM

I brought in the last two frozen pumpkins, one "pie," one jack-o-lantern sized, and again found the smaller more fragrant and seemingly nutritious, even though the larger had actually decomposed further. So I was wrong about acid levels being a result of fermentation only. The "pie" pumpkin is simply better food, for microorganisms as well as humans.

No bitter bites this time, as I learned to avoid slimy flesh just as you'd peel the slime layer off a crock; but the onset of satiety was just as sharp.

[p38thadl]

"We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own." I took the juice of a completely caved-in, frozen, squat pumpkin and left it to ferment in the kitchen, and got a lovely bloom of foam, which I presumed to be yeast.

I pitched a new batch of kombucha with it, using the half-tea half-starter (all liquid) method. The SCOBY looks really skin-like, not rubbery in most places, but floats nicely. There's just a ton of yeast sediment at the bottom of the quart mason jar, and when I poured off the finished kombucha, it had beer-like foam around the edges of the glass. So it seems what I have would be "ale yeast."

I smelled interesting bubblegum notes over the original ferment, but the kombucha seems unaffected, flavor-wise. Still, I'm hoping that yeast from a winter squash may add some vigor to that side of my continuous brew, eventually. I'll keep a separate batch, for now, build that SCOBY nice and thick.