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Wenona Flood's Recipes
Pumpkin Soup


Every year at this time I begin to become visibly aware of our wasteful ways. After the holiday the beautiful, healthful, plentiful pumpkins set and set and set until the crumble into themselves.

One year my little granddaughters class made a field trip to the pumpkin patch which was a great excursion for the children. They were each given a pumpkin. I took my cam corder and recorded every step of the trip even to the part where we brought the pumpkin home not for a jack-0-lantern but for pumpkin soup and pumpkin seed tea.  Here is  the recipe and it is delicious.

Pumpkin Soup

Scrub outside of pumpkin well with soap and water and rinse very well. This is in case there have been sprays used.

With a very heavy knife on a heavy surface cut the pumpkin into chunks two to three inch squares (this after you have removed the seeds) Be careful, and this is a job for an adult.

Place these chucks in a large pot of water and cook until they can be tested with a fork as to being done.

Remove and allow the pumpkin to cool. After it is cool slip the skin off.

Peel potatoes as for potato soup and cook with a very large diced up onion.  When potatoes and onion are done, add pumpkin. Season with butter, and salt. Serve in a large soup tureen, a special table cloth, large soup bowls, and a big deal as to, "pumpkin soup,"  so the kids will remember.

And I still have the video of a very small girl carrying a very big pumpkin from the field rich with nourishing food.

Oh yes the seeds:

Pumpkin seed tea

Boil the seeds.  Allow them to cool. Place along with the liquid in a blender. After you whirl them pour through a very fine sieve and maybe even a cloth to strain.

Sweeten with honey and add some spices, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice.

Serve the pumpkin seed tea with the pumpkin soup.  Good food, good lesson. Don't waste the farmers labor, his wife's gathering the crop, and most of all the creator's gift from what the Indian's call, the
earth, our mother.

The Indian people were very proud about not begging. If you ever have an opportunity to see the documentary about "The Trial of Standing Bear," watch the part where Standing Bear comes up on a very small sod house belonging to a Swedish farmer.  They, of course, were  afraid of the "Savages".

Standing Bear held out his hand with a couple dimes in it toward the farmer. "Please,"  he said, "My people are starving. Can I buy some corn?"

The farmer turned and said to his wife,  "Anna, get some bread. These people are hungry."

Today, that beautiful statue of Standing Bear stands here in Ponca City, Oklahoma as a reminder of the great chief's hand extended toward the settlers. Not to beg, but to buy what he needed.

Donna
The short story, "A Name for Eldest Daughter,"  tells of the frugal ways of the American Indian people.


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