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Cushaw
Cucurbita argyrosperma · Squash
40 pairings
Cushaw is the big striped crookneck pumpkin of the American South and Mexico — a heavy, curve-necked Cucurbita argyrosperma winter squash with green-and-cream mottled skin and pale gold, mildly sweet flesh. Long grown by Indigenous peoples and Appalachian and Southern gardeners, it is the traditional squash of cushaw pie, cushaw butter and long-keeping winter stores.
Picking a good onedrag
Cured hard, dead matteSoft at the bulb, weeping
Settled in storeSweeter than a fresh-cured one: roast the neck, or puree it for pie.Everyday best
StemStem cut short, dry and still firm
Rind under a nailNail marks it but will not pierce
Neck and bulbMatte, one pale flat ground patch
Smell at the stemFaintly sweet squash at the scar
What to look for, from cured hard, dead matte to soft at the bulb, weeping.
What one gives you
71%
Usable yield
About 710 g of flesh a kilo - hard rind, seeds and stem out
Keeping ittap a band
Below about 10 C the rind pits and it rots on the way out, so a whole cushaw keeps far better on a dry shelf than in the fridge; cut wedges invert - wrap and chill those.
Humidity
50-70%
Drier than almost any other vegetable wants: damp air rots the rind and the stem scar, so a dry shelf beats a cool cellar floor.
Airflow
Open and airy
Stand them apart on a slatted shelf, never bagged or stacked - a fruit this heavy traps damp underneath, and that is where the first soft patch starts.
Apples fade the stripes
Non-climacteric, so it gives off barely any itself, but ethylene from apples and ripening tomatoes yellows the green stripes and loosens the stem from its scar.