WEBVTT - Where Do Butternut Squash Come From? 0:00:01.890 --> 0:00:07.810 Welcome to BrainStuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, BrainStuff. Lauren 0:00:07.830 --> 0:00:12.889 Vogelbaum here. It's officially fall here in the Northern Hemisphere, 0:00:13.130 --> 0:00:15.880 which means some of us have visions of pumpkin spice 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.079 lattes dancing in our heads. Or maybe mugs of a 0:00:19.420 --> 0:00:23.360 nice hearty squash soup. The latter is more my style, 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:26.220 but only because if I have too much sugar, someone's 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.680 going to have to deal with me. But whatever your preference, 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:33.480 weirdly enough, the same species of winter gourd is often 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:36.720 used to make both. And it's not the type of 0:00:36.860 --> 0:00:41.690 pumpkin you're probably thinking of. Certainly, in the United States, 0:00:41.790 --> 0:00:44.190 when we think of a pumpkin, we're usually thinking of 0:00:44.250 --> 0:00:47.210 the large, sturdy gourds you can dig the seeds out 0:00:47.290 --> 0:00:50.990 of and carve into a jack-o'-lantern. These are varieties of 0:00:51.030 --> 0:00:54.750 the species Cucurbita peepo, which are known for having flesh 0:00:54.810 --> 0:00:58.970 that's juicy and stringy. They're in the same wide species 0:00:59.130 --> 0:01:04.050 as spaghetti squash and zucchini. The types of quote-unquote pumpkin 0:01:04.090 --> 0:01:06.990 that get processed into the canned pumpkin you might buy 0:01:07.030 --> 0:01:09.950 to make a pie or latte are generally of the 0:01:09.990 --> 0:01:13.890 species Cucurbita muscata, which are known for having flesh that's 0:01:14.030 --> 0:01:17.730 firmer and smoother. This is the species that gives us 0:01:17.810 --> 0:01:22.660 calabazas and butternut squash. The specific variety grown for Libby 0:01:22.700 --> 0:01:26.150 pumpkin pie filling in the U.S. is the Dickinson, which 0:01:26.310 --> 0:01:30.590 is a large, pale-tan oblong type. People like to argue 0:01:30.630 --> 0:01:33.370 about whether it should be properly called a squash or 0:01:33.390 --> 0:01:38.450 a pumpkin. Some of those people work for the brand Libby. Anyway, 0:01:38.950 --> 0:01:42.940 varieties or cultivars of both of these species vary widely 0:01:43.180 --> 0:01:48.260 and were developed by humans specifically for those varying traits. C. 0:01:48.300 --> 0:01:52.780 muscata contains a whole mess of mostly winter squashes, which 0:01:52.820 --> 0:01:55.830 are types of squash harvested when they're fully mature, usually 0:01:55.890 --> 0:01:59.250 in the fall. They have thicker skin and tend to 0:01:59.470 --> 0:02:01.610 keep pretty well for a few months at room or 0:02:01.670 --> 0:02:05.570 cellar temperature. This is opposed to summer squash, which are 0:02:05.610 --> 0:02:09.030 harvested when they're still immature, in the summer. They're more 0:02:09.110 --> 0:02:11.830 delicate and perishable, and will usually last a week or 0:02:11.870 --> 0:02:15.290 two in the fridge. Today, let's talk about one of 0:02:15.330 --> 0:02:20.120 those varieties of Sea Moscato winter squash, the aforementioned butternut squash. 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.820 This variety is fairly omnipresent today, and not just in 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:28.440 the United States. Of the global market for this squash, 0:02:28.540 --> 0:02:30.769 which is worth well over a billion dollars a year, 0:02:31.250 --> 0:02:36.050 about 55% comes from outside of the Americas entirely. If 0:02:36.110 --> 0:02:38.270 you're the kind of person who enjoys looking up recipes 0:02:38.330 --> 0:02:41.800 on the internet, you can find all sorts of different soups, stews, 0:02:41.860 --> 0:02:46.200 and bakes incorporating butternuts from all over the world. But 0:02:46.580 --> 0:02:50.000 although squashes in general have probably been part of human 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:53.220 diets for as long as there have been humans, butternut 0:02:53.260 --> 0:02:56.019 squash was only developed less than a century ago on 0:02:56.580 --> 0:03:02.710 farms outside of Boston. The Gourd family, Cucurbitaceae, arose in 0:03:02.750 --> 0:03:06.650 what's now India some 63 million years ago and spread 0:03:06.690 --> 0:03:10.270 out from there, jumping from Asia to Africa to South 0:03:10.310 --> 0:03:14.570 America in a bunch of different distribution events. Maybe birds 0:03:14.650 --> 0:03:19.150 ate their seeds and flew across Cretaceous-era oceans, or maybe 0:03:19.230 --> 0:03:24.410 the sturdy hollow gourds themselves floated over open water. Maybe both, 0:03:24.770 --> 0:03:29.850 a number of times. This eventually resulted in the genus Cucurbita, 0:03:30.310 --> 0:03:33.369 which arose in South or Central America at least 9 0:03:33.370 --> 0:03:37.650 million years ago. Later, humans there picked these plants up 0:03:37.790 --> 0:03:41.710 and started domesticating them, selecting them for different desirable traits, 0:03:41.850 --> 0:03:45.530 like sweetness or storage hardiness, pretty much as early as 0:03:45.570 --> 0:03:49.900 humans were domesticating things. There's evidence that C. peepo was 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:53.860 domesticated there 10,000 years ago. That's when folks around the 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.860 Mediterranean were working on domesticating wheat. And looking at C. 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:01.860 muscata … In what's now the southeastern United States, remains 0:04:01.940 --> 0:04:04.660 of sea moscata have been found in settlements dating back 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:09.760 to around 2000 to 1500 BCE. So we've been enjoying 0:04:09.820 --> 0:04:13.960 these squash for a long time. Skipping ahead a few 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:18.730 millennia to the 1940s CE, the popular varieties of winter 0:04:18.790 --> 0:04:23.070 squash grown in the northeastern United States were a little unwieldy. 0:04:24.110 --> 0:04:26.390 You had the Blue Hubbard, which was a lot bigger 0:04:26.510 --> 0:04:30.179 and heavier than most home cooks are used to wrangling today. 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:34.040 There were also curved neck squashes like the Gooseneck that 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.760 are very pretty, but longer and weirder and more difficult 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:41.220 to stack for shipping. So, a fellow by the name 0:04:41.300 --> 0:04:44.690 of Charles Leggett from the town of Stowe, Massachusetts, decided 0:04:44.870 --> 0:04:48.010 to do something about it. Although Leggett was a life 0:04:48.050 --> 0:04:50.830 insurance agent by trade, the house he'd bought for his 0:04:50.870 --> 0:04:53.839 family 30 miles west of Boston was came with about 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:57.100 90 acres of land. For our metric friends, that's about 0:04:57.100 --> 0:05:02.120 36 hectares of land some 50 kilometers outside of Boston. Anyway, 0:05:02.620 --> 0:05:05.640 Leggett took to experimenting in the garden in his free time. 0:05:06.420 --> 0:05:08.300 One of his goals was to come up with a 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:12.020 squash that was smaller and easier to handle and prepare 0:05:12.260 --> 0:05:15.310 than the varieties that were on the market. he wound 0:05:15.370 --> 0:05:18.170 up bringing one of his developments to the nearby Waltham 0:05:18.210 --> 0:05:21.789 Field Station, then a research facility in affiliation with the 0:05:21.850 --> 0:05:26.190 Massachusetts College of Agriculture. There, a professor by the name 0:05:26.250 --> 0:05:29.650 of Robert E. Young helped Leggett refine the variety into 0:05:29.750 --> 0:05:34.610 what's now officially known as the Waltham Butternut Squash, so 0:05:34.670 --> 0:05:37.490 named because it's as smooth as butter and sweet as 0:05:37.529 --> 0:05:40.670 a nut. Within just a few years, it had already 0:05:40.710 --> 0:05:44.400 started replacing local crops of the Blue Hubbard, And over 0:05:44.420 --> 0:05:46.380 the next few decades, it made its way across the 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:50.919 country and the world. It's still a source of local pride, though. 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:54.310 At least part of Leggett's farmland was redeveloped in the 0:05:54.370 --> 0:05:57.790 early 1990s as a golf course, joining other golf and 0:05:57.850 --> 0:06:00.650 or country clubs in the area. And the new owners 0:06:00.730 --> 0:06:06.130 named it the Butternut Farm Golf Club. But, okay. The 0:06:06.230 --> 0:06:08.950 plant that butternut squash grow on is a type of 0:06:09.130 --> 0:06:12.370 annual vine, meaning it needs to be replanted every year. 0:06:13.450 --> 0:06:16.470 Those vines are thick and sort of bristly, and can 0:06:16.529 --> 0:06:19.070 trail along the ground or be trained up a scaffold 0:06:19.150 --> 0:06:23.800 of whatever kind. It'll produce broad, lobed leaves, and during 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:27.900 the early summer, will bloom with big, showy, bright yellow flowers. 0:06:28.930 --> 0:06:31.550 The flowers are also edible, and if you happen to 0:06:31.589 --> 0:06:34.170 grow your own butternut squash and have too many blossoms, 0:06:34.330 --> 0:06:36.990 you can bread and fry them, maybe stuffed with some 0:06:37.029 --> 0:06:40.610 nice goat cheese. But if you don't eat them and 0:06:40.670 --> 0:06:45.440 they are pollinated, they'll develop fruit. Yes, a butternut squash 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:50.380 is a fruit. Botanically speaking, it's a berry. Yes, strawberries 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:55.410 are not berries. Butternut squash and bananas are. A butternut 0:06:55.430 --> 0:06:59.390 will start out small, with a greenish-white striated skin, and 0:06:59.430 --> 0:07:03.810 be kind of intrinsically cute-looking. It often resembles a slightly 0:07:03.850 --> 0:07:07.700 weird peanut, like drawn by Pendleton Ward. the squash's skin 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:10.500 will deepen and brighten to a golden tan color of 0:07:10.540 --> 0:07:12.820 the course of the summer as it grows and matures. 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:16.020 When you pick a butternut squash, you want to leave 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:18.920 a couple inches of stem on and then cure them 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:21.620 by keeping them in a warm, dry place for a 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.820 few days at least. After that, they should be stored 0:07:24.860 --> 0:07:28.550 in a cool, dry-ish place. During all of this curing 0:07:28.580 --> 0:07:31.830 and storing, butternuts will convert some of their starches into 0:07:31.930 --> 0:07:36.900 sugars and develop a deeper orange flesh color. meaning they'll 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:41.700 become tastier and more chock-full of micronutrients, being that precursors 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:46.360 to vitamin A are responsible for those orangey pigments. Science 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:49.360 has shown that butternuts need a couple months in storage 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:52.930 to really develop post-harvest, and they'll keep for another few 0:07:52.970 --> 0:07:57.250 months after that. Despite this, the squash's skin is very 0:07:57.330 --> 0:08:00.990 thin and is edible. It's a little chewy or tough-ish 0:08:01.050 --> 0:08:04.410 when cooked. which you might like for a contrast in texture, 0:08:04.650 --> 0:08:07.560 or you might want to peel off to maintain smoothness 0:08:07.620 --> 0:08:11.200 depending on your application. You scoop out the seeds and 0:08:11.220 --> 0:08:14.380 their stringy webs before cooking. The seeds are also edible 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:18.460 and tasty when toasted. Farmers have developed a number of 0:08:18.540 --> 0:08:23.400 sub-varieties of butternut, with differences in flavor, color, size, shape, 0:08:23.900 --> 0:08:27.660 environmental preferences, time to harvest … and have given a 0:08:27.820 --> 0:08:31.720 lot of them cutesy names like honey nut, brulee, and 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:35.510 nutter butter. The typical butternut squash will be around a 0:08:35.530 --> 0:08:38.070 foot long and maybe half as wide and weigh about 0:08:38.130 --> 0:08:41.630 two to four pounds. That's about 30 centimeters long and 0:08:41.650 --> 0:08:45.890 weighing a kilo or two. But they can get much bigger. 0:08:46.900 --> 0:08:50.220 The Guinness World Record for the heaviest butternut squash was 0:08:50.260 --> 0:08:55.000 achieved in Germany in 2024. The squash in question weighed 0:08:55.000 --> 0:09:00.110 137 pounds. That's 62 kilos. This is the sort of 0:09:00.140 --> 0:09:06.470 category that frequently gets toppled, by the way. Sport squash growers, which, yes, 0:09:06.670 --> 0:09:09.410 is a hobby that people take part in, employ all 0:09:09.490 --> 0:09:13.290 kinds of tricks, like shaded tents and supportive hammocks, to 0:09:13.350 --> 0:09:18.319 provide ideal big squash conditions. There wasn't a new winner 0:09:18.420 --> 0:09:22.240 for heaviest butternut in 2025, though, and as of this recording, 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:26.580 it's a little early yet for word on 2026's champion squash. 0:09:27.700 --> 0:09:35.610 We'll update you if there's an upset. Today's episode was 0:09:35.650 --> 0:09:38.890 written by me, Lauren Vogelbaum. For more on the butternut squash, 0:09:38.990 --> 0:09:41.660 check out the episode of my food podcast, Saver, called 0:09:41.860 --> 0:09:45.360 Falling for Butternut Squash. BrainStuff is a production of iHeart 0:09:45.380 --> 0:09:49.140 Podcasts in partnership with HowStuffWorks.com and is produced by Tyler Klang. 0:09:49.710 --> 0:09:52.870 For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeart Radio app, 0:09:53.290 --> 0:09:56.130 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.