A LIVING HISTORY BLOG.

18TH CENTURY LIVING HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA.

Saturday, 22 May 2010

Another Great Trail Food.

In the 18th century the seeds of the pumpkin were roasted and eaten and the best were saved for next year's seed. These days the pumpkin pulp and seeds all too often end up in the chook run or the compost bin. My wife roasted a batch of pumpkin seeds this weekend as we had pumpkin soup for lunch.

There were a lot more pumpkin seeds, but I could not stop eating them once I started! In the end I had to stop long enough to take this picture!



Roasted they will keep for ages, providing you don't eat them of course (!), and they make a great trail food.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

how long would they keep when roasted?ie would they keep through the whole of winter?thanks..

Ramana Rajgopaul said...

LL,pumpkin seeds, seeds of the canteloupe and sunflower seeds are widely used in food in India. The first two are roasted and the aril removed to get at the core kernel and in the case of the sun flower seeds, it is now almost the most widely used cooking medium as oil.

Alex said...

Here in Romania, we still eat roasted pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds. There is an entire industry around roasted seeds.

Keith said...

Hi Alex. Yes you can purchase sunflower and pumkin seeds here already prepared, but probably they are not as popular as where you are. Also the connection to historical times is not always as apparent until you actually see the plant and the process involved in preparing them.
Thanks for your comment/feedback, very much appreciated.
Regards.