Squash Steamed
Wash out or saw the squash in half crosswise; remove the seeds and stringy portions. Lay the prepared pieces inside down, in a steamer, over boiling water, and cook until thoroughly done; then take from the steamer and scrape the cooked squash clean from the shells. Put it in a heated bowl, season to taste with butter, salt and pepper, mash very smooth and serve in a very hot dish. In seasoning, add a very little sweet cream and a very small quantity of sugar.
A straightforward steamed winter squash, mashed in the shell-scraping style that predates the food processor. Two things carry it: the squash must be cooked past resistance, and the cut side must face down so steam circulates rather than pooling.
- "Wash out or saw"The phrase as printed is garbled; it most likely intends washing the squash and then sawing it in half crosswise, with a serrated knife or a small handsaw. Hard-shelled varieties such as Hubbard genuinely do resist a chef's knife; a heavy cleaver tapped with a mallet works as well.
- Which squashA period recipe of this kind would most likely be worked with a hard winter squash such as Hubbard or marrow — dense, dry-fleshed and often large. Butternut or kabocha give a similar result in less time.
- Cut side downLaying the halves "inside down" lets condensation drain out instead of collecting in the cavity. Skip this and the mash needs draining before it will hold a shape.
- Timing"Thoroughly done" is 25-40 minutes for butternut halves, up to an hour for a thick-walled Hubbard. Test at the thickest point near the stem, not at the thin rim; the flesh should offer no resistance to a knife tip.
- Scraping the shellsDo this while the squash is still hot — a metal spoon lifts the flesh cleanly and leaves the fibrous layer against the skin. Cooled squash tears and brings shell fragments with it.
- Seasoning proportionsThe original leaves these to taste. For roughly 4 cups of cooked flesh, 2-3 tablespoons butter, a tablespoon or two of heavy cream and a teaspoon of sugar is in keeping with the "very little" and "very small quantity" the recipe intends.
- Heat the bowl and dishBoth instructions are deliberate. Mashed squash carries a lot of water and loses heat fast; a cold serving dish drops it to lukewarm before it reaches the table.
- YieldA 3 lb squash yields about 3 cups mashed, serving four to six as a side.
Winter squashes are native to the Americas and were among the crops English and Dutch settlers adopted wholesale; the word itself comes from a Narragansett term generally given as askutasquash. The Hubbard was among the leading market squashes in the northeastern United States in this period, and large enough that halving one called for a saw rather than a knife. Steaming rather than boiling reflects a real preoccupation of late nineteenth-century domestic writers, who argued repeatedly that boiling waterlogged vegetables and washed out flavor — advice that holds up for dry-fleshed squash, where the whole aim is to concentrate rather than dilute. The touch of cream and sugar aligns the dish with the sweetened squash and pumpkin dishes long associated with American holiday tables.