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Winter Squash

a name which is applied to those kinds of squash which are allowed to mature on the vine, then stored for use in winter. The skin is hard and inedible, while the inside becomes firm and is often superior in flavour to most sorts of summer squash.

The dividing line between summer squash and winter squash thus corresponds to differences in use. It does not correspond to divisions between the four principal botanical species of squash. Nor is it a firm dividing line, because there are some cultivars which can be harvested early as summer squash or kept to become winter squash.

Despite the above, it remains true that virtually all the principal cultivars are either summer or winter. How the winter squashes relate to the principal species is shown in the list below.

• Cucurbita maxima includes the larger kinds of winter squash, e.g. the cultivars Hubbard and Buttercup.
• C. mixta includes the Cushaw group of cultivars, of which Golden Stripe Cushaw is the best; Silver Edges, grown for its large and tasty silver-edged seeds; Japanese Pie (seems marked with what look like Chinese characters, so sometimes called Chinese alphabet squash); and the desert cultivar Apache Giant.
• C. moschata, a species which grows only in warm regions, provides some of the smaller sorts of winter squash, including the Butternut group of cultivars, the Winter Crookneck, and the Cushawsome; plus some sorts of pumpkin and improved cultivars of Calabaza, a word which just means squash in Spanish, but is also used for a group of large squashes with bright orange flesh which are very commonly used in C. and S. America and the Caribbean. Calabaza is referred to as winter squash, because it has a hard shell and keeps well, but it is not a seasonal vegetable.
• C. pepo includes some cultivars of the Acorn group (but the great majority of cultivars of this species are always treated as summer squash).

Kabocha is a squash which is difficult to categorize. Elizabeth Schneider (1986) explains that the name is both a generic grouping and a more specific marketing name in the USA, applied to:

many strains of Japanese pumpkin and winter squash of both Cucurbita maxima and Cucurbita moschata species. Home Delite, Ebisu, Delica, Hoka, Chirimen, Hyuga, Hoka, and Sweet Mama are all varieties that might be called kabochas in a Japanese or American market.

Schneider adds that, with their flattened drum or turban shapes and deep green skins, they bear some resemblance to Buttercup; and that all have a fine flavour, rich sweetness, and almost fibreless flesh.

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