The winter squash called la sucrine du Berry resembles an extra-large butternut squash — inside and out. We grew some this year for the first time in years. Back in 2005, in one of our first vegetable gardens, we had a good crop, and it's the same in 2016.
Yesterday, I went out and harvested the 12 sucrines that were still growing out in the garden. We originally had 13, but we gave one to friends. Anybody else want one?
Since we have it now, all finished, I put the squashes on shelves in the greenhouse to dry out and take advantage of any sunlight we have over the next day or two and ripen a little more.
We also got three pumpkins this year. The one above is a potiron (sugar pumpkin, I think is the American term, or pie pumpkin) even though it might not look like one. It stayed green on the outside. This one was growing upside down and I haven't yet had a chance to clean the dirt off of it. Here's a photo of the other pumpkin of this variety we got this year. We have eaten it now.
We also have a more classic-looking pumpkin called a rouge vif d'Etampes. It's also a potiron, and not a citrouille, which is what a decorative or jack-o'-lantern pumpkin is called in French. The Larousse Gastronomique says: En cuisine, le potiron est parfois appelé « citrouille », alors que la véritable citrouille, jaunâtre parfois panaché de vert, est un aliment de bétail.
Above and below are two more photos of the sucrines du Berry. I hope they will last long enough — without starting to rot — for us to enjoy eating them this winter.
Being able to have a vegetable garden was an important feature we were looking for in a house when we decided to leave the city (San Francisco) and move to the country (in France) 14 years ago. We planted our first garden here in 2004.
Wonderful crop. This year I managed to grow only one but last year's crop was like yours. They gradually turned yellow and lasted most of the winter. We ate squash soup, sweet and savoury pies, roast squash, squash puree and still gave some away. Happy pumpkin eating!!
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DeleteYour garden is a.great possibility to have healthy veggies
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DeleteI'll have one, but don't see any opportunity in the near future to fetch it :-)
ReplyDeleteThe sucrines will last a while, I hope. We'll see what we can work out.
DeleteWhen we grew them in Leeds, one of our sucrines lasted nine months...
Deleteand was still good and tasty on cooking.
They do keep.
We'll swap one for a Crown Prince!
ReplyDeleteSee what I said to Susan. On verra...
DeleteI'm going to have to look up what bétail means!
ReplyDeleteThe Robert dictionary says: Ensemble des animaux entretenus pour la production agricole.
DeleteI think production agricole means husbandry, that is breeding and raising livestock in addition to cultivating crops. With mechanization, fewer animals, if any, are used in the fields nowadays.
DeleteThanks for the translation help. I didn't know what bétail was either.
DeleteThat classic orange citrouille sure is pretty. And your wisteria has grown significantly.
Bétail just means livestock, whether the "beasts" do labor in the fields or vineyards, produce milk (thus cheese), or end up as meat on our tables.
DeleteDo you have lots of Southern recipes for squash and pumpkin ? My grandfather was a chef and it always amazed me how he made vegetables so tasty that even his picky grandchildren gobbled them up :)
ReplyDeleteI don't think we ate pumpkins or winter squashes when I lived in N.C. back in the 1950s and '60s. We had sweet potatoes instead.
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