DELECTABLE ORANGE HEIRLOOMS
Heirloom pumpkins are particularly beautiful, with their fascinating shapes, odd textures, and gorgeous shades of orange. There are some with blue skins, but they still have orange flesh inside. Many heirloom pumpkins originated in France, dating back 100's of years.
Rich, fragrant orange heirloom pumpkin flesh is delicious roasted and grilled. The puree adds extra dimension to pies, breads, cakes, and soups. The flesh can even be dried and ground into flour. Heirloom pumpkin seeds roast up to a delicious iron-rich snack, while the blossoms provide a delicate vessel for stuffings.
These pumpkins are especially high in fiber, antioxidants, and Vitamin A.
While all pumpkins are beautiful in their own right, the heirloom varieties are like objets d’art, with sculptural shapes, some deeply fluted, some heavily textured, in a gorgeous array of hues, ranging from vibrant red-orange, to delicate apricot, to celadon, to pale aqua, to ghostly white.
Heirloom pumpkins are harder to find, but they’re easy to grow from seed. And, since they are not mass produced, they are almost certainly organic and non-GMO.
These bright orange-red pumpkins are known as "Rouge Vif d'Etampes." The name comes from the meaning “rouge vif” which in French is “vivid red.” Also known as “Cinderella” pumpkins, they are slightly sweet and make a great ingredient for pumpkin pie.
The variety dates back to the late 1800’s, when they were the most common pumpkins in the Central Market in Paris.
Musquee de Provence (aka Fairytale) pumpkins look like they belong in a Renaissance still life painting. This heirloom variety hails from the south of France.
Deeply fluted, with voluptuous lobes, this pumpkin is sublimely picturesque. Its skin is a beautiful, rich brown color when ripe, while its flesh is deep orange. This variety can grow up to 20 pounds in heft, as it tends to be quite dense, which results in a very fine flavor.
The Long Island Cheese is another deeply fluted sculptural pumpkin. This heirloom variety has smooth buff-orange colored skin and a "cheese wheel" shape. It is very heavy for its size, with thick, sweet flesh. It makes for a beautiful still life and an awesome soup.
Red kuri squash is an heirloom thick-skinned pink colored dandy with a delicate and mellow chestnut-like flavor. It is a cultivated variety of the species Cucurbita maxima.
While it is mainly known as a Japanese vegetable, it is generally believed to originate in Mesoamerica, as all pumpkins and squash have.
It is primarily grown in Japan, California, Florida, Southwestern Colorado, Mexico, Tasmania, Tonga, New Zealand, Chile, Provence, and South Africa.
The Queensland Blue is an Australian heirloom variety of pumpkin introduced to the U.S. in the 1930's. While the outside is a haunting blue color, the inside is a beautiful orange. It’s a lovely color combo.
The Black Futsu is a rare Japanese pumpkin, named for its blackish green skin. It’s orange flesh has a rich taste, reminiscent of hazelnuts. It is a prized heirloom, with deep ribbing and a gnarly texture. Just gorgeous. It makes a beautiful addition to a harvest still life.
This French heirloom is beautifully flawed. The warts on its skin, at first blush, are grotesque, but upon holistic view, offer a gorgeous texture, as if the pumpkin was sculpted out of chiseled stone or grabbed by barnacles. In fact they are caused by sugars in the pumpkins’ skins. It has a velvety smooth flesh, making perfect soups and sauces.
The Blue Hubbard squash dates back to the early 1900’s. This variety looks like an alien life form, due to its ghostly outer hard-shell color, with its freaky shapes and textures. It can grow up to 40 lbs in weight.
The flesh is a beautiful golden orange -- sweet and fine-grained, making it a winner for pies and soups.
Heirloom hybrids can be beautiful too. The Long Island Seed Project crossed Long Island Cheese Pumpkins with large mottled grey-green Calabazas with the ribbed Musque de Provence.
This beautiful group of uniquely-shaped heirloom squashes were gathered and arranged by the Petaluma Pie Company. The exquisite French “Potimarron” tastes like a cross between a pumpkin and a chestnut and pumpkin, as its name reflects.
The Shishigatani, a Japanese Kabocha heirloom pumpkin tastes more like a sweet potato. They are all perfect ingredients for the bakery’s artisanal pies.
One of our favorite botanical gardens, Longwood Gardens, presents an annual display of over 100 different orange pumpkins, squashes and gourds every October.
If you want to plant some for yourself, look for heirloom varietal seeds that have never been hybridized.
Read more about Opulent Orange all this week on BeautifulNow. Including, The Most Beautiful Pumpkin Festivals to Visit Now, Hack Your Brain with Orange Light, The Grace of Orange Sunsets, 10 Super-Fast Opulent Orange Cars and Celebrate & Save These Orange Beauties. And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Wellness, Impact, Nature/Science, Food, Arts/Design, and Travel, Daily Fix posts.
Want more stories like this? Sign up for our weekly BN Newsletter, Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest. Join our BeautifulNow Community and connect with the most beautiful things happening in the world right now!
Do you have amazing photos? Enter them in this week’s BN Photo Competition.
