the.com/acorn squash
a winter vegetable wearing a pumpkin costume and an avocado's body plan.
means A small, ribbed winter squash shaped like an acorn, with a hard dark-green (sometimes orange) rind and sweet, nutty orange flesh, usually baked.
from A plain English compound: "acorn" plus "squash," named for its resemblance to the nut of an oak. "Acorn" comes from Old English æcern, originally meaning the fruit of unenclosed forest or field — related to words for "acre" and open land — only later narrowing to the oak's nut. "Squash" is the truly American part: it's a clipping of the Narragansett word askútasquash, roughly "a green thing eaten raw," borrowed by English settlers in New England in the 1600s. So the name marries an old Germanic word for woodland fruit with an Algonquian word for a vine vegetable.
- botanical truth
- It's technically a fruit, like all squash.
- frost trick
- Cold snaps make it sweeter by converting starch to sugar.
- long keeper
- Stores for months in a cool, dry pantry.
- edible armor
- The ridged skin softens and becomes fully edible when roasted.
- ancient crop
- Domesticated in the Americas thousands of years ago.
butternut squash — most common winter squash variety in north america, 90% of us production in connecticut and massachusetts
delicata squash — small sweet squash with edible skin, popular at farmers markets in california