Don’t Squelch Squash

All squash are gourds with seeds inside and protective skins outside. Summer squash are picked when they are immature and the skins and seeds are edible. Winter squash are picked fully mature; the skins are hard, protecting the flesh inside, and the seeds are large and woody. Squash are native to the Americas. In fact, the Incas had been cultivating them centuries before the first English settlers arrived. The seeds were rapidly dispatched back to England and the Indians’ squash took Europe by storm. Now every year seems to bring a new variety to the market—one whose origins may be in Latin America, the Mediterranean, or the Orient. Squash has become a worldwide passion.