Baked Acorn Squash

Acorn squash is one of several comfort foods that I strongly associate with my paternal grandmother’s Southern-influenced cooking.  I’m sure that I ate it on other occasions during my childhood, but my memories of consuming this squash always seem to be tied to Grandma Geneva’s kitchen table.  I haven’t had the dish in years, but I’ve been thinking about squash lately for this diary.  Perhaps as a result, the sight of the acorn squash at my local Schnucks got me pining for that distinctive taste.

Acorn squash is the mature fruit of Cucurbita pepo, an annual flowering forb/vine in the cucumber family, Cucurbitaceae. Many of the familiar domesticated squashes are varieties of the single species C. pepo, including yellow summer squash, yellow crookneck squash, spaghetti squash, delicata squash, pattypan squash, zucchini, and some varieties of pumpkin.  Acorn squash is one of the so-called winter squashes, in that it is harvested when the fruit is fully mature.  Consequently, the rind of the fruit is thick and tough, which provides some measure of protection during storage.  As a result, the fruit resists spoilage well into the winter months, hence the “winter squash” appellation.

C. pepo has been cultivated in the Americas for thousands of years, and may have been independently domesticated twice.  There is evidence of cultivation of a C. pepo progenitor in Oxaca, Mexico as early as 10,000 years ago (8,000 BCE), which would make it a much older food crop than the other two staples of Mesoamerican agriculture, corn and climbing beans.  Squash cultivation eventually spread northward from Mexico, into the present-day United States.  However, there is evidence that C. pepo was domesticated separately in the eastern United States as early as 5,000 years ago (3,000 BCE).  In fact, the archaeological site that provides this dating (Phillips Spring) is located in the Pomme de Terre River valley in west-central Missouri.   As it happens, this “American” lineage of cultivated C. pepo--as opposed to the “Mexican” lineage--is a candidate for the ancestor of acorn squashes.

Baking acorn squash is pretty easy.  Almost all recipes can be summed up thusly: halve, seed, add a little fat and sugar, then bake for an hour or so.  And rightly so: Anything beyond that and you’re gilding the lily, in my opinion.  The main variation you’ll see on this formula is the addition of hot and/or savory spices, sometimes in place of the sugar.  Some examples:

• Baked Acorn Squash by Cathy Lowe (Food Network)
• Baked Acorn Squash with Brown Sugar and Butter by Paula Deen (Food Network)
• Baked Acorn Squash by Martha Stewart
• Acorn Squash by terrylee51 (Allrecipes.com)
• Baked Acorn Squash by corwyn darkholm (Allrecipes.com)

My goal was simply to prepare the squash in this spirit, but without butter or sugar. At my local Schnucks I found Big Chuy acorn squash, which are grown in Mexico.  When seasonal eating is the goal, preparing acorn squash throughout autumn and winter is appropriate, given the fruit’s hardiness following harvest.

I halved the squash lengthwise (stem to tip) and scooped out the seeds and string, separating the seeds out for roasting (more on this at a later date).  I then scored the inside of the seed cavities with a small knife.

Okay, what about butter?  Dairy products are generally out of the question if adherence to American foodstuffs is the goal. Of the handful of mammal species domesticated in the Americas, only the alpaca appears to have been utilized for its milk, and that milk evidently isn't too palatable. And Peru is pretty far afield from the Mississippi Valley, anyway...

No problem.  The growing popularity of vegan cooking has expanded the options for dairy substitutions.  When cooking from American origin, one loses access to those Old World fat staples, the olive and rapeseed (the source of canola oil).  However, there are plenty of other options to be found in the oils and butters derived from native grains, nuts, and seeds, and in pureed native fruits.  In this instance, I turned to sunflower oil, specicially Hain Pure Foods 100% Expeller Pressed Sunflower Oil.

American origin substitutions for sugar are more limited, but the Big One is easy to obtain: maple syrup.  I used SpringTree Maple Syrup, Grade A.  The darker Grade B works just fine, however, and is generally less expensive.  One of my goals in the near future is to find a cheap source of Grade B syrup in larger quantities.

I used a silicone pastry brush to coat the inside of the seed cavities with sunflower oil, then drizzled about 2 teaspoons of maple syrup into the cavity of each half.  I placed the halves in a baking pan with a little bit of water and baked at 400° degrees for 60 minutes.  There was a little excess oil and syrup in the cavities after baking, which I just drained off.

The flesh of the fruit can be eaten right out of the rind; a grapefruit spoon works well for this.  If they aren't eaten right away, the squash halves can be wrapped in aluminum foil and refrigerated.  One to two minutes in the microwave will do to resuscitate them.