Blue Hubbard Squash

That big blue-green football-shaped thing in the picture at left is a Blue Hubbard squash. It's almost 24 inches long, weighs about twenty pounds or so, and it's sitting in my kitchen sink because I just finished rinsing the field mud off of it so I can roast it in the oven.

I love winter squash of all kinds, but Blue Hubbard is my favorite variety. It's often grown along with pumpkins here in the Connecticut River valley and sold as an autumn ornamental gourd (just like pumpkins) because over the years, people have stopped eating it and just use it to decorate the front of their house, along with dried ears of "indian corn," pumpkins, and cornstalks.

Having it widely available as an ornamental works out pretty good for me. The farms in South Hadley MA where we buy our winter vegetables for long-term storage sell a lot of Blue Hubbards, for about $3.00 each. So every year we buy two or three of these monsters, roast them, and freeze the ready-to-eat portions for easy use through the year. A huge, twenty-pound squash sounds like a lot, but after the seeds are scooped out and the hard rind is trimmed off, there's somewhat less to package.

Processing a Blue Hubbard squash is a daunting task if you've never done it before, what with that big intimidating rock-hard blue shell, but in reality it's not that difficult. Start by giving the gourd a light scrubbing under clear running water - like pumpkins, Hubbards are heavy and field-grown and often have a thick crust of dirt on the ground-contact side. After the bath, put the squash on a heavy cutting board and use a strong meat cleaver to deliver a fast, hard strike dead center. Don't be afraid, and don't pull your punch, and THE SQUASH WILL SPLIT IN TWO LIKE THE SKULL OF YOUR ENEMY AS YOU CLEAVE HIS HELM WITH YOUR BROADSWORD.

Inside, the Blue Hubbard consists of hard, brittle, golden-yellow flesh surrounding a central fibrous core loaded with thick-hulled seeds. Scoop out the fibers and seeds. You can roast and eat the seeds just like pumpkin seeds if you like, but the thick hulls are kind of brittle and nasty. Give them to your chickens (if you have them) or just leave the seed mass in a pile under your bird feeder for the squirrels.

Once the seeds are scooped out wield thy cleaver once again, using sharp, fast strikes to split the squash into several manageable chunks. Put the chunks into a roasting pan and pop them into a 375 F oven for about 90 minutes or so, until the hard pulp is fork-tender and the color has darkened a shade. Don't add water to the roasting pan - Hubbard squash is notoriously "wet" despite its brick-like appearance, and if there's water in the roasting pan the squash will be less likely to evaporate out some of the water in the pulp.

When the cooking is done, you can serve the chunks right out of the pan - scrape the pulp out of the inedible shell as you eat. Or, allow the squash to cool enough to handle comfortably and pare the skin and rind from the flesh with a sharp knife and freeze the pulpy chunks for later.

You can also steam Hubbard squash, but I don't like that method so much because of how much water the stuff absorbs when it's over steam.