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To Stew Summer Squash
Cut squashes in pieces, put them to cook in a little water, and when tender, drain, mash fine and season with salt, white pepper, butter and sweet cream.
A four-line vegetable side that assumes you know what "summer squash" meant on an American table around 1900. The whole dish turns on getting the water out.
- The squashIn this period "summer squash" usually meant the yellow crookneck or the flat pattypan, picked young with soft skin and undeveloped seeds. Zucchini works identically. Older squash with tough skin and hard seeds should be peeled and seeded first.
- The hinge: drain hardSummer squash is well over ninety percent water, and mashed squash that has not been drained turns to soup the moment butter and cream go in. Drain in a colander, press with the back of a spoon or a plate, and let it sit several minutes before mashing.
- "A little water"Half an inch in the pan is plenty; the squash releases its own liquid within a minute or two. Tender means a knife slides in with no resistance, roughly 8 to 12 minutes for one-inch pieces.
- Sweet creamThis means fresh unsoured cream, as opposed to the soured or ripened cream also kept in a nineteenth-century kitchen. Heavy or whipping cream is a reasonable modern stand-in, though period cream varied in richness; two to three tablespoons for a pound of squash.
- White pepperProbably called for so black flecks would not mar a pale dish, a common convention in period cookery. The flavor is earthier and slightly fermented compared with black pepper, and it is worth using as written if you have it.
- YieldTwo pounds of squash gives about four modest side servings. It reheats poorly once creamed, so make what you will eat.
- FinishingIf the mash still seems loose after draining, return it to the dry pan over low heat and stir a minute or two before adding butter and cream to drive off the last of the moisture.
Summer squashes are New World cucurbits, grown across the Americas long before European contact and adopted early by colonial kitchens, where they were treated as a quick, perishable crop to be eaten within a day or two of picking rather than stored like winter squash. The plain treatment here "boil, drain, mash, enrich with butter and cream" is a common nineteenth-century American method for a soft vegetable. The call for white pepper may be a small mark of gentility, suggesting a cook who cared how the finished plate looked.