"BUT what do you do with it?" asked the lady in the country market, peering across at the pumpkin her neighbour was holding.
It's a good question, but if you asked it the other way around - "What can't you do with it?" - then we would be closer to the spirit of the pumpkin, a versatile vegetable which deserves a better fate than to be turned into a Halloween head.
Cut in halt, then baked with some butter, salt and pepper, it produces classic comfort food, and perfect baby-food - just scoop out the soft flesh and, mash or puree it. It is great in risotto, good in a soup with spaghetti, perfect in pies and tarts and, if you are daring, then you can do something outrageous such as Paul Bocuse's extraordinary dish in which an entire chicken is baked inside a big pumpkin, and paired with a pumpkin gratin - one of the most spectacular dinner dishes I know.
Let us start with something simple, which is Richard Olney's Provencal Pumpkin Gratin. This needs no technique, little effort, and produces smashing grub. My kind of cooking.
Provencal Pumpkin Gratin
1kg (2lb) pumpkin, well peeled of its hard rind, seeds and stringy flesh removed
7 or 8 cloves garlic, crushed, peeled, and finely chopped
6 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
Salt, pepper
4 tablespoons flour
6 tablespoons olive oil
Slice the pumpkin into thicknesses of 1 cm/1/2 inch and cut each slice into 1cm/1/2 inch strips.
Cut bundles crosswise (hold them firmly) into tiny dice and toss in a mixing bowl with the garlic and the parsley, seasoning several times while tossing so the cubes will be regularly seasoned and coated.
Sprinkle over the flour and toss the contents of the bowl repeatedly until each tiny cube is evenly coated with flour (adding a bit more if necessary - excess flour will fall to the bottom of the bowl and may be discarded later).
Generously rub the bottom and sides of a fairly deep earthenware gratin dish with olive oil, fill with the cubed pumpkin mixture, pressing gently and evening the surface, dribble olive oil in a crisscross pattern over the entire surface, and cook in a gentle oven (325F, 170'C, gas 3) for 2-2 1/2 hours or until the surface forms a deep, rich brown crust, falling just short of being blackened.
Beneath the crust, the pumpkin should have melted to a near-puree, the cubes retaining their form but ready to collapse at the touch of a fork or a tongue.