Pumpkin Fritters

This is a fritter in the older sense: no batter, just salted, floured strips fried in fat. The whole dish turns on getting the moisture out of the squash first, so do not shorten the salting.

• What pumpkin means hereA "long oval pumpkin" of moderate size is not the ribbed orange field pumpkin sold for carving, whose flesh is coarse and wet. Look for a young marrow, a large zucchini, or a firm tromboncino or Cucuzza; a small butternut also works and holds its shape well.
• Salting is the hingeTen minutes with salt and a shake or two draws surface water so the flour will stick and the fingers will brown instead of steam. Drain and wipe thoroughly, exactly as written — any wet patch will spit in the fat and go soggy.
• Cut size"Long square fingers" is not specified further; batons roughly half an inch square and three to four inches long are a reasonable reading. Cut them even, or the thin ones burn before the thick ones cook.
• DrippingBeef or bacon dripping, saved from roasting; it was a common frying fat in late nineteenth-century kitchens. Any neutral oil with a high smoke point substitutes, though you lose the savoury note the original assumed.
• Fat depth and temperatureThis is shallow frying in a pan, not deep frying — a quarter inch of fat is enough. The recipe says only "when hot": hot but not smoking, around 350–375F if you measure. The fingers take three to five minutes, turned once or twice, until golden and just tender.
• Salting twiceThe pieces are salted before frying and dusted again after. Go light on the first salting, since some of it stays on the squash, or the finished fritters will be aggressive.
• Yield and serviceThe recipe gives no quantities; about a pound and a half of trimmed squash would serve four as a side. Serve straight from the pan on a warmed dish; they soften within minutes and do not reheat well.