16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Thursday, November 16, 1911: Nothing important.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Since Grandma didn’t write much a hundred years ago today I’m going to go off on a tangent –
My husband and I recently were out in the country and saw a farmer selling pumpkins, squash and other produce from a far. There were two large hubbard squash on the wagon. I immediately knew that I had to have one of them.
The farmer was surprised when I purchased it. He said that few people bought hubbard squash anymore. He said that the previous year he’d sold none—and my purchase was his first hubbard squash sale this year.
He continued, “Old people buy them once in a while. Young people think they are some type of big gourd.”
(I hope he wasn’t insinuating that I’m old. Middle aged: yes; old: no)
Are hubbard squash really an almost archaic food? . . .a food from Grandma’s day that people seldom eat now?
Here’s my favorite hubbard squash recipe. It’s probably not a hundred-year-old recipe—but it’s a good way to use an old-time squash.
This soup is excellent, and I make it several times every Fall.
Hubbard Squash Soup
3 cups hubbard squash pulp (approx. 1/2 hubbard squash)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, diced
6 cloves garlic, finely diced
2 stalks celery, chopped
5 cups chicken broth
2 ham hocks
1 tablespoons honey
3/4 teaspoon thyme
2 cups heavy cream
2 cups milk
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. To get squash pulp, cut hubbard squash in half; remove seeds and membranes. Unless the squash is very small, only 1/2 of squash (or even less) will be needed to get 3 cups of pulp. [An aside: The squash in the photo is very large–and I needed to use less than a quarter of it to get 3 cups]. Put squash on a cookie sheet, cut side up. Bake the squash for 45-60 minutes or until tender. The squash meat will start to become dark. This is okay. Scrape squash out of the shell, and measure 3 cups of squash for use in this recipe.
Put olive oil in large pot. Heat using medium heat and then add celery, onion, and garlic; cook until tender. Add chicken broth, squash, ham hocks, honey, and thyme. Simmer for 45 minutes. Pull the ham hock out and dice any meat. Return meat to soup; cool slightly Puree soup in a blender until smooth. Return to pan, and add cream and milk. Reheat soup, then serve.
Yield: 9 servings
A Hundred Years Ago 
Do you think this recipe would work with butternut? I’ve always wanted to try hubbard squash, but I’ve been kind of afraid of it. I buy butternut that’s already cut up. I’m afraid of taking a finger off cutting into these hard squashes. I hear dropping hubbard to crack it on the ground is a good way to get the process started. Your recipe sounds delicious, BTW.
Butternut should work just fine. The taste and consistency is very similar to hubbard.
Hubbard squash are difficult to cut–but I still have all my fingers. One year we had one with a particularly hard shell and my husband used a saw to cut it.
I love your blogging of your grandmother’s diary, especially the recipes. My grandmother, who was born in 1893, was a marvelous cook. I have some of her recipes but, like most good cooks, she didn’t always use a recipe. She simply had great culinary instincts, little food money, and many mouths to feed. She raised five kids by herself and, thereafter, tended to five grandchildren (including me) while our parents worked. Her house (in a major city) lacked electricity but she turned out fine meals on a coal-fired kitchen stove, and she stored leftovers in an ice-box. I can’t understand today’s limited resource parents who feed their kids fast food because it is cheap. The slow foods (soups, stews, casseroles) that we grew up eating are inexpensive alternatives—and healthy! Your grandmother’s recipes (and mine) prove it. I’d bet that the cost of your hubbard squash soup (about 305 calories/6.8 grams of fat) is far less than artery-clogging Big Macs (704 calories/ 43.7 grams of fat each) and fries for a family of four. Keep those recipes coming. And thanks!
Thanks for stopping by! You’re right, many old-time foods don’t cost much. I bought the hubbard squash for $4–and only used part of it to make the soup. I’m not sure what the other ingredients cost,but I don’t think it was more than a couple additional dollars. When I make this soup it makes several meals for my husband and me.