September – December from California
Many cooking pumpkin varieties come to market this time of year. The pumpkin varieties make great pies, tarts, cakes, raviolis, soups and so on.
My favorite pie pumpkin is the Australian Queensland Blue. It has a gray/green skin and a deep orange flesh. It is often confused with Jarrahdale Squash which is very similar in look. I love this pumpkin because it is thick and meaty and has the perfect flavor for pies. The seeds are plump and meaty also and are great roasted. Unfortunately, this variety has been very hard to find in recent years.
The Lumina variety or White Pumpkin is also a dense fleshed pumpkin with thick seeds.
The New England Sugar Pie and the Mystic varieties are your normal looking orange pumpkins that have been the common cooking varieties over the years.
More Squatty shaped pumpkins with deep ribbed furrows would be the Cinderella variety, which has a thick moist flesh and the Fairytale variety which is denser and less moist.
My favorite new star is the Marina di Chioggia. This warty blue-grey pumpkin is naturally sweet (hence the warts) and has very dense flesh with minimal moisture making it a favorite amongst chefs. It is easily recognized by the lumpy surface and the turban shale on the stem end.
Whatever variety you choose, the perfect baking pumpkin should be hard and heavy with no soft spots or cracks. Check the stem area to make sure that there isn’t any breakdown as short stemmed pumpkins will faster than long stemmed pumpkins.
Video, Marina di Chioggia: See my video here: https://youtu.be/WieIu3KtkUg
Video, Cooking Pumpkins: https://vimeo.com/365604406
Video, Cooking Pumpkins Part Two: https://youtu.be/xCv0TTB0H9M
