This is a quote i have to share:

[highlyeccentric]

Although pumpkin is readily available in many countries, Australia is the only one to consider it seriously as a vegetable.

- The Women's Weekly Cookbook, 1970-something.

We not only consider our pumpkins, we consider them *seriously*. Not like the Americans, who clearly take their pumpkins lightly, appropriating them as a source of festivity and jokes.

And just in case you thought we might consider pumpkins as meat, starch, dessert, or even furniture, let us make it clear: we consider pumpkin seriously as a vegetable. Pumpkins in this country are secure and widely affirmed in their identity as vegetables!

Pumpkin: SRS BIZNIS FOODSTUFFS

Comments

[be_themoon]

heee!

AS A VEGETABLE.

[highlyeccentric]

As my LJ has pointed out IT'S BIOLOGICALLY A FRUIT! In Australia, we affirm pumpkin in it's desire to cross food-genre boundaries! Pumpkin's identity as a vegetable is performative and we do our best to help pumpkin adopt the role of vegetable in our kitchens, without restricting it to normative vegetable functions - some might say that its popularity in scones belies it's origins as a fruit, but we in Australia believe that vegetable is as vegetable does, and sometimes, vegetable does as fruit!

[kayloulee]

*bursts out laughing*

AWESOME. I for one am always in favour of foods choosing to adopt the food-genre-category that they feel best fits them, regardless of what they are 'supposed to' do. For example, zucchini bread. Beetroot cake (yes, really).

[highlyeccentric]

Truly, Australia is a haven for the oppressed pumpkin, driven into exile by the unenlightened attitudes of other nations, who scarcely afford to the pumpkin the liberties enjoyed by biological vegetables such as the zucchini and the beetroot.

I hear that, in the past, pumpkins were even consigned to dog food in Germany! Discrimination is rife.

[kayloulee]

Smile, you've been Metaquoted!

[highlyeccentric]

Awww, shucks

[be_themoon]

lol - if you hadn't, I would have.

[damned_colonial]

(here via metaquotes)

You don't want to know what Americans do with pumpkins. And sweet potatoes. Seriously. *Shudders* They treat them as dessert. Now, I'm not dessert-ist, but that's just not right, you know?

(Also, in passing... you seem to have done something to your journal style that hides the Dreamwidth top nav bar. This annoys me as I can't easily see information about our relationship, switch your journal "light" style, etc. Please consider not doing that.)

[highlyeccentric]

I can SORT of see how you use pumpkin for dessert, but sweet potato?

(Honestly, it drives me bats too, but I really love the style and I cp'd the CSS - haven't had time to figure out how to read CSS and fix it up to get the nav bar back)

[waywren]

Yeah, it's AWFUL. They basically candy it, and then they cover it with TINY MARSHMALLOWS.

That poor sweet tater.

[adelheid]

Technically accurate, but one eats the candied sweet potato as part of the main course. It is NOT a dessert. :-)

Also, as much as I love pumpkin soup and pumpkin curry, and on rare occasions, roast pumpkin, pumpkin pie is the bestest thing in the whole WORLD. (And sweet potatotes cooked with lots of butter and brown sugar are not that far behind.)

But wait, there's more!

[cursor_mundi]

Heeeey, we also turn it into fries/chips, eat it just like a baked potato, that sort of thing. The sweetness is a regional difference--much more common in the south, particularly sweet potato pie which has tons of butter as well. In the mid-Atlantic region, anyway, the candied and marshmallow-festooned version only appears as a side dish during Thanksgiving.

Re: But wait, there's more!

[waywren]

Well, yes, but in the south the aforementioned Pie is so rabidly presented that I honestly thought I hated sweet potatoes until mom did one as a baked potato and shoved a piece into my mouth. A very sad thing.

Re: But wait, there's more!

[cursor_mundi]

I hear you. The pie...does not have much in common with the potato; more in common with butter. Sweet potato fries are much tastier! (And saltier. Mmm. Salt.)

[msilverstar]

There's a reason it's called "sweet" potato! Good sweet potato pie is a thing of beauty.