Among many others, my fond memories of the fall are intertwined with the red maple trees and bright orange pumpkins.
We sold our first family house with two pure red maple trees in our backyard many years ago, but the deep scarlet red maples, whose branches overarched our deck, are still in my memory! Along with these, fall also brings me one of my fondest memories of the pumpkins in my parents' field in Kathmandu, Nepal.
My parents harvested lots of pumpkins in the fall and saved some of them for the winter months, when fresh vegetables were short supply when I was growing up. I can still see those bright yellow, large and heavy pumpkin in my mind's eyes! I needed help to carry just one of those pumpkins off from our parents' field to the veranda where the fleshy pumpkins sat, facing the bright afternoon sun, most of the year ( while lasted).
During the winter months, my mother made all kinds of dishes out of those pumpkins: We eat them boiled with ghee, salt and pepper some days and other days my mother curried them with goat legs or horse radishes. We also had the pumpkin salad -- one my mother's unique recipes that I'm going to included in my book, Cuisines of Nepal.
While my mother used her pumpkin flesh to prepare her side- dishes, one of her tenants used the seeds to make the most delectable candies. She took hours to make them, but they were the best sort of candies one could ever make!
She heated her flat iron cookie-sheet over a charcoal fire in a small earthen pot, we called a "makkal" in Nepal. First she rubbed a bit of ghee over her sheet and then she laid her seeds on single layer. The seeds were stirred often while pouring a bit of sugar with ghee syrup over them. She occasionally fanned the makkal to keep the coal burning. It probably took 20 to 30 minutes for her seeds to roast, but they were the most appealing cream coloured spiky candies you could ever imagine. Slowly roasted in ghee and sugar syrup, the pumpkin-candy tasted great.
She heated her flat iron cookie-sheet over a charcoal fire in a small earthen pot, we called a "makkal" in Nepal. First she rubbed a bit of ghee over her sheet and then she laid her seeds on single layer. The seeds were stirred often while pouring a bit of sugar with ghee syrup over them. She occasionally fanned the makkal to keep the coal burning. It probably took 20 to 30 minutes for her seeds to roast, but they were the most appealing cream coloured spiky candies you could ever imagine. Slowly roasted in ghee and sugar syrup, the pumpkin-candy tasted great.
