[Market-farming] pie pumpkins

Tradingpost tradingpost at gilanet.com
Thu Sep 23 10:36:54 EDT 2004


Bill, isn't the sweetmeat squash also grown for pumpkin pie filling? I've had good experience with using my own sweetmeats  for pie.

paul at largocreekfarms.com
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 9/23/2004 at 9:10 AM Bill Shoemaker wrote:

>Pie pumpkin is a term that gets applied to small pumpkins in the industry
>and many of these cultivars were not bred for the highest quality for pie
>making. They just have that cute small jack o'lantern look that consumers
>like, and growers usually call pie pumpkin. Illinois grows the bulk of the
>nation's pumpkins for canning (Libbys/Nestles/others). I've had the
>opportunity to work with the industry a bit during my career. I can vouch
>that the pumpkin pumpkin pumpkin that goes in the can with the Libbys
>Libbys
>Libbys label is not a jack o'lantern pumpkin. It's not even the same
>species
>of pumpkin. It's a Cucurbita moschata pumpkin, closely related to butternut
>squash, with the same-colored smooth skin and an oblong shape, like a
>football without the points on the end. A couple of oldtime varieties that
>are like this are Dickinson Field and Kentucky Field. A newer cultivar that
>is smaller and very true to the type is Buckskin. I'm not sure who carries
>it but I'd guess it wouldn't take too many searches in seed catalogues to
>find it. The small jack o'lanterns called pie pumpkins (Cucurbita pepo) are
>great ornamentals but I'm not sure you'll get as good a pie. But, then
>maybe
>you could make a pie out of butternut squash. That doesn't sound half-bad
>too me.
>
>Bill Shoemaker
>Sr Research Specialist, Food Crops
>Univ of Illinois - St Charles Hort Research Center
>
>





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