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Carl Davaz

Making a meal shouldn’t be dangerous. I’ve never been tempted by those Japanese puffer fish that kill someone every so often, or even by pain-inducing incendiary chilies. I have, however, fallen for sweet meat squash.

Sweet meat squash is very pretty — a flattened round of pale, silvery blue-green, sometimes with light brown speckles. It’s an excellent squash for eating with its dense, deep, orange-yellow sweet flesh. And the numerous plump seeds are just great for roasting and snacking.

Let’s go back to the dense flesh. We’re talking very dense. In fact, the sweet meat is so hard that it is almost impossible to open. The first time I had it, I bought one that already had been cut in half. I went back for a whole one and had a terrible time trying to cut it open.

Forget using a chef’s knife. You could cause great bodily harm when it bounces off the impermeable rind. I have tried an ax (works, if the ax is sharp enough) and putting it in a pillowcase and dropping it on the cement garage floor (works, but depending on the size, it may take repeated drops or a higher drop from a ladder.)

I bought a sweet meat squash recently from Johnson’s Farms on Armitage Road and asked Amber Johnson how to deal with it. A very slow oven was her suggestion. She cooks one that weighs a little more than 10 pounds for three to four hours at 275 degrees, until it can be pierced easily with a knife or skewer.

You do have to plan ahead if you want sweet meat squash for dinner, but because it keeps well in the refrigerator or freezer, it’s easy to throw a well-scrubbed one (the smell of cooking dirt is not a pleasant one) onto a baking sheet, where it will roast quietly with no intervention from you other than a poke now and then to check to see if it’s done. Throw it in the oven after dinner comes out and let it go until bedtime, put it in on a Saturday morning when you’re doing chores, or let it bake alongside a pot roast.

When it’s done, cut it open, scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff, then scoop out the flesh. Let it cool before packing it airtight to store in the refrigerator for a week, or in the freezer for months. (Really, months. I recently used a well-sealed batch from last year in soup; it was still delicious.)

Sweet meat squash has such a nice flavor, it doesn’t need much gussying up. This squash mash slides easily into a soup if you add additional liquid.

Sweet Meat Puree

• 2 tablespoons butter or olive oil
• 1/2 cup finely diced onion
• 2 cups sweet meat squash, mashed
• Cream or milk, to thin
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Heat the butter or oil in a large saucepan over medium high heat. Add onion and cook until the onion has softened and begins to turn golden.

Add squash and cook, stirring and mashing well until its heated through and fairly smooth. Thin, if desired, with cream or milk. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Variations

• Add 1 teaspoon dried thyme.
• Add 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh sage leaves when sauteing the onion.
• Add 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese.
• Add 1 teaspoon cinnamon and a pinch of cloves.

To make soup, thin with additional milk or cream to make squash bisque, or thin with chicken or vegetable broth.

Kim Davaz of Eugene writes the biweekly Eating In column.

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