Cucurbita pepo includes eight groups of edible cultivars--pumpkins, scallops,acorns, crooknecks, straightnecks, vegetable marrows, cocozelles, and zucchinis.The pumpkins, scallops, and possibly the crooknecks are ancient groups that developedalong separate lines of domestication in North America. Incipient formsof all the other five groups appeared in botanical herbals of Europe by 1700. Modernforms of the vegetable marrows, cocozelles, zucchinis, and acorns appeared inEurope prior to 1860, and the modern straightnecks appeared in North Americaby 1896. Divergence among the various groups appears to be increasing undercontinuing domestication due to the different demands made on cultivars grownfor their immature fruits as opposed to cultivars grown for their mature fruits. Anassociation exists between length to width ratio and stage of culinary use of thefruits in Cucurbita pepo.Cucurbita pepo L. (Cucurbitaceae) fruits occur in a myriad of shapes, sizes, andcolors. Hundreds or perhaps several thousand different named cultivars are grown.Eight groups of cultivars differing distinctly in the shape of their fruits are grownfor culinary purposes. These groups are the pumpkins, scallops, acorns, crooknecks,straightnecks, vegetable marrows, cocozelles, and zucchinis (Paris 1986b).The pumpkins and acorns are grown for consumption of their mature (40 d ormore past anthesis) fruits. The others are grown for consumption of their immature(generally first week past anthesis) fruits. Representative immature and maturefruits of each group are depicted in Fig. 1-16.The fruits of other C. pepo cultivars are not palatable and are grown purely fordecorative purposes. These are known collectively as ornamental gourds, and theyoccur in a wealth of shapes and colors (Bailey 1937). Some of the ornamentalgourd cultivars, such as 'Flat', 'Miniature Ball', and 'Pear', differ little from wildand feral C. pepo in their phenotypic characteristics, including small fruit size andstriped fruit color pattern.Cucurbita pepo, one of five cultivated species of Cucurbita, is a native of NorthAmerica (Trumbull 1876; Whitaker 1947) and has been cultivated there for severalthousand years (Cutler and Whitaker 1961). The cultivated forms are domesticatesof wild forms from northeastern Mexico (Andres 1987) and Texas (Bailey 1943;Erwin 1938).The cultivated, edible forms of Cucurbita generally differ from wild forms byhaving larger and fewer seeds and fruits, non-bitterness and less fibrous nature ofthe fruit flesh, larger plant parts, fewer runners, and less durable and more varicoloredrinds (Whitaker and Bemis 1964). Whitaker (1960), Whitaker and Bemis(1975), and Herklots (1986) suggested that the first use by early Americans of Cucurbita species as food was the consumption of the edible, non-bitter, andhighly nutritious seeds, as the fruit flesh was bitter and became papery at maturity.Under domestication, selection for larger seeds probably inadvertently resultedin selection for larger fruits. Harvesting of immature fruits for food resulted inencounters with mutants having non-bitter flesh. Cutting of mature fruits for theirseeds resulted in encounters with and preservation of seeds from mutants havingnon-bitter, starchy flesh. Presumably, selection for non-lignified rinds and improvedquality of the mature fruits followed.The English-language terms for C. pepo--pumpkin, squash, gourd, and marrow-have often been used indiscriminately. Sturtevant (Hedrick 1919) adequatelyreviewed the literature concerning the usage of the terms pumpkin, squash,and gourd. Some repetition would be valuable as these terms will be used to someextent here in distinguishing the various forms. The term squash is derived froma North American Indian word, asq, plural asquash, whose root meaning is somethingeaten when immature or raw (Trumbull 1876). On the other hand, the wordpumpkin is derived from the Latin pepo and Greek pepon, which implies roundnessand larger size (Hedrick 1919). Thus, the modern common usage of the termsummer squash for the immature fruits of C. pepo and the term pumpkin for themature fruits of large, round-fruited forms of Cucurbita admirably fits the ancientusages of these terms. The modern term winter squash is applied to palatablemature fruits that are not round or nearly so. Various suggestions in the scientificliterature for distinguishing a squash from a pumpkin by species (Castetter andErwin 1927) or by eating quality and method of culinary preparation (Whitakerand Bohn 1950) deviate from the original meanings and have not been incorporatedinto vernacular usage. The term gourd will be used here in the same senseas is used in the U.S.A.: unpalatable forms of C. pepo and other cucurbit species.The word marrow, a shortened version of "vegetable marrow," is used in theU.K. to denote the immature fruits of C. pepo. The term vegetable marrow isreserved for a particular group of summer squash, a group that was popular inthe U.K. (see below).As far as has been determined, all of the various pumpkins, squashes, andgourds of Cucurbita pepo intercross freely. And yet, as pointed out by Sturtevant(Hedrick 1919) and Bailey (1929), some cultivars and groups of cultivars haveretained their distinguishing characteristics for centuries. The objective of myreview is to trace the history, possible origins, modern development, and presentstatus of the culinary groups of C. pepo.HISTORICAL RECORDS OF THE CUCURBITA PEPO CULINARY GROUPSThe earliest written reports we have of Cucurbita are accounts of the firstexplorers of the Americas. These early records, reviewed by Sturtevant (Hedrick1919) and by Coulter (1943), do not appear to have contained detailed descriptionsof fruit types.Some 50 yr after the voyage of Columbus, descriptions and illustrations ofCucurbita began to appear in botanical herbals of Europe. They include the firstaccurate detailed descriptions in existence of the various forms of C. pepo. These very many shapes, was included by many early botanists, including Linnaeus, inCucurbita (Bailey 1929). Thus, the accounts of the various forms classified asCucurbita must be interpreted with particular caution. Fortunately, flower colorwas an important characteristic to these botanists, and in many accounts themention of white (for Lagenaria) or yellow (for Cucurbita) flower color allowsclassification with certainty as to genus.Some vernacular accounts have also been a potential source of confusion. Forexample, pumpkins were variously referred to as pompions, pompeons, melons,millions, and yet other terms. Even the same form or cultivar often had morethan one vernacular name, a condition existing to this day. In addition, the samename was often applied to completely different cultivars. An important exampleof the latter case was the use of the term crookneck for a form of C. pepo summersquash and for a form of C. moschata (Duch. ex Lam.) Duch. ex Poir. wintersquash.Fortunately, most of the early botanical drawings were so detailed that theparticular species of Cucurbita to which the depicted form belonged is easilydetermined, based on the distinguishing characteristics of the cultivated Cucurbitaspecies enumerated by Whitaker and Bohn (1950). To these drawings can beadded some realistic paintings from the 16th and 17th centuries that included
Cucurbita fruits (Zeven and Brandenburg 1986) as well as detailed literary accounts,
notably the Historia plantarum universalis (Bauhin 1651), which was
completed by 1613 (Morton 1981). These drawings, paintings, and literary accounts
also enable us to trace, to a greater or lesser extent, the history of each of
the C. pepo groups, as follows:
Pumpldn
The pumpkins, probably the oldest and most diverse group of C. pepo, have
been considered to be the typical group of the species (Bailey 1929; Greben~ikov
1958; Paris 1986b). They were the first C. pepo to be depicted in the botanical
herbals (Bock 1546; Fuchs 1542) and were subsequently represented in great
variety, including forms having fruits that were spherical, oblate, oval, obovate,
longitudinally grooved and non-grooved, and large and relatively small (Bauhin
1651; Dalechamps 1653; Dodoens 1554, 1616; Gerard 1597; Gerarde and Johnson
1636; Lobelius 1576; Mattioli 1558, 1586; Parkinson 1640; Tabernaemontani
1664). An illustration by Fuchs (1542) may represent 'Small Sugar', a cultivar
that is still very much in commerce. In realistic paintings of vegetable markets
in the Netherlands and Flanders by various artists of the 16th and 17th centuries,
as many as eight different forms of C. pepo pumpkins were depicted (Zeven and
Brandenburg 1986). Pumpkins also became denizens of English gardens (Miller
1732; Parkinson 1640; Plat 1660; Quintinye 1710), and forms subsequently found
in North America were compared with those already being grown in the U.K.,
both favorably (Beverley 1705; Josselyn 1672) and unfavorably (Strachey 1612).
Numerous pumpkins were listed and described in accounts of then contemporary
cultivars in the U.K. (Corbett 1833; Mawe and Abercrombie 1797) and North
America (Burr 1863; Castetter and Erwin 1927; Fessenden 1837; Goff 1888;
Gregory 1893; Tapley et al. 1937). Zhiteneva (1930) presented photographs of fruits from land races of C. pepo from Turkey and Mexico, including many
pumpkins. Pumpkins are consumed when the fruits are fully mature. Their fruit
rinds are not lignified, enabling easy slicing of the fruits. This characteristic apparently
was important to Native Americans, for it has been suggested (Kay et
al. 1980; Whitaker and Cutler 1965) that it was common practice to slice the
fruits into strips and then hang the strips to dry, for preservation of the flesh.
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