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The BIG one
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Pumpkin is a good source of proteins and unsaturated fat.
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A CLOSE relative of the cucumber, gherkin, squash and melon, "this gross watery pumpkin" (Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor) has a Greek etymology ("pepõn" - large melon) and a 7,000-year-old American history written in fossils in the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico, the caves of Ocampo, Tamaulipas, and the fertile soils of Missouri and Mississippi.
When the French and the Spanish arrived in North America, they discovered the Native Americans liked their pumpkins roasted on the open fire. This gave them the idea of making pumpkin pie by baking on hot coals a deseeded pumpkin stuffed with milk, honey and spices. When the Scottish and the Irish arrived, they found the enormous fruit with the tough rind was ideal for carving the ghostly figure of Halloween's Jack O'Lantern — the fabled dead Irishman who roams the earth, with only a lantern in a carved fruit to light his way, after being denied entry into both heaven and hell.
Though some pumpkins are white as a ghost, most are orange or yellow in colour because they are rich in beta-carotene.
Their size is their most variable feature: most weigh a few kilos, but many are around a 100 kilos, and the largest one on record weighed 481 kgs! Ninety per cent of the pumpkin's weight is water.
The flowers, seeds and the fruit flesh are edible; roasted seeds are a traditional Native American snack and they are rich in protein and unsaturated fats.
The flesh is the base for soups, breads and pumpkin pies. About 100 gm of the raw fruit contains 26 calories and meets nearly a third of our daily Vitamin A needs, and a sixth of the Vitamin C requirement. The Vitamin A is in the form of its precursor, beta-carotene — an antioxidant that protects against some aspects of aging and fights cancer and heart disease — causing free radicals.
The pumpkin is low in sodium and contains nearly 340 mg of potassium per 100 gm, which is great because a diet rich in potassium and low in sodium is important in the dietary control of hypertension.
It is also rich in dietary fibre and contains appreciable amounts of zinc, selenium, calcium and folate.
Pumpkins were once a traditional remedy for snakebites and freckles.
RAJIV M
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