The colours of Autumn
Little pumpkins on sale at a market stall.
The history of the pumpkin and squash go back to the tropical Americas thousands of years ago along with other tropical areas of the world. They are all cucurbits or members of the cucumber family, along with melons, marrows and courgettes; although they are all related to one another there is an amazing contrast in the colour size and shape.
The squash members of the family are split into summer and winter and for the purposes of this exercise we will be looking at the winter squash. It is a vegetable that will keep from 2 months to 9 months and, as you can imagine, long before the times of refrigerators and freezers to have a food source that would store without any expense and inconvenience was a great asset. Popular with vegetarians and for inclusion in baby foods the Squash has high levels of Beta Carotene and Vitamin E.
(From a website...)