culinary self-discovery
Oct. 24th, 2023 11:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettThe reason I'm finding myself indifferent to so many non-butternut winter squash is that they're too far over to the "melon" end of the (socially constructed, by me) cucumber-melon spectrum.
Which isn't really a reason in itself so much as it is a pattern, but I have long described my perspective on melons as "like if cucumbers had bad qualities and then you turned them up to 11".
(This realisation brought to you courtesy of "making pumpkin soup for lunch and questioning my life choices".)
(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-24 10:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-24 10:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-24 11:18 am (UTC)How do you feel about the softer, fleshier sort of pumpkins?
(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-24 03:03 pm (UTC)I like summer squash (sensu latu) and cucumbers. I like butternut squash. I have yet to meet any other type of pumpkin or winter squash I like -- the Red Onion squash we had recently was least bad of the lot in terms of flavour (from my perspective), but I was not a fan of the texture! So, er, "slightly more that way inclined but only slightly"?
(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-24 12:37 pm (UTC)If I was drawing a cucumber-to-melon spectrum, winter squash would be off to one side, relative to both: something like watermelon, cantaloupe, ... cucumber, ...acorn squash. For me, cucumber is in a space that overlaps fruit and vegetables: cucumber ice cream works, but so does putting cucumber in a dinner salad with greens.
I'm not sure where/how Waldorf salad (mostly apples and nuts, in a mayonnaise=based dressing) or my friend Jeanne's tomato-and-nectarine fruit salad fits in here.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-24 01:52 pm (UTC)For calibration: how do you feel about zucchini? I'm neutral to favourable.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-24 03:05 pm (UTC)Very fond of courgettes and other summer squash!
(The socially-constructed cucumber-to-melon spectrum is constructed that way, by me, because from my perspective one of these things is good, whereas the other is Not, so it's really a scale of "how good is this cucurbit"...)
(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-24 03:52 pm (UTC)You can have my share of whatever pattypan/scallop squash is available. Cucumbers also.
For me, I think the axis goes, instead, cucumber-to-tomato, with zucchini in the middle. (Tomatoes are good. Tomatoes, of course are not cucurbits, but are still (like the other two) members of a taxon I just invented, called Wet, Seedy, Culinary Vegetables. Melons are off somewhere to the side, in an area of the chart labelled Obviously No.)
(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-24 05:15 pm (UTC)I'd break it down as watery flesh vs firm; fibrous vs fine-grained; sweet vs savory; big seeds vs small; percentage and sliminess of seeds.
In all cases I prefer firm and savory. I'm agnostic on the fibrousness or sliminess of any given cucurbit, it just changes how I prepare it.
The outlier that I like despite being highly watery and sugary AND having extremely many slimy seeds is kiwano horned melon, which is so out the other end of Being An Melon that it's almost a passionfruit.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-25 10:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-10-25 11:21 pm (UTC)