Sweet Dumpling Squash

Looking like a porcelain-perfect French soup tureen or tufted hassock, this small, rounded squash (the size of a hearty apple) weighs under a pound, usually about ½. The sweet dumpling is colored a solid cream (or, less often, orangy beige) and prettily scalloped with regular, shallow lobes, its indented areas striped in mottled ivy-green. The pale yellow flesh is smooth-textured, fine and dry as a potato, richly starchy, with a light to medium sweetness and slight corn flavor. The appearance is of a winter squash (usually Cucurbita maxima), rather than pepo, which covers the summer varieties.