By Emma Laws, Cathedral Librarian
At this time of year, the shops are full of all sorts of pumpkins: oval and round shaped; large and small; bumpy and smooth; orange, yellow, white, cream and green. Less common varieties include a bright blue pumpkin called Blue Jarrahdale, and an orange and green-black variety called Batwing. If you’ve been carving pumpkin lanterns this week, you may be wondering what to do with the pumpkin flesh and seeds. My annual favourite is homemade pumpkin scones soaked in melted butter – and the seeds are delicious roasted in a little oil and salt.
John Gerard (1545-1612), an English herbalist, wrote about the virtues of over a thousand plants in his magnificent Herball or General Historie of Plantes, published in 1597. The Cathedral Library has the second edition of 1636. Inevitably, Gerard included observations from folklore and myth alongside observations of actual plants, but his book remained a standard reference work for many years.
Pumpkins, originally called Pompions, are of a ‘cold nature’ and have a ‘certain clensing qualitie’ not unlike that of the cucumber. Gerard advises against eating them raw; instead, the flesh ‘boiled in milk and buttered, is not only a good and wholsome meat for mans bodie, but so prepared, it is also a physical medicine for such as have an hot stomack’. The seeds, he suggests, are even more beneficial, especially to those ‘troubled with the stone of the kidnies’. However, as tasty as it sounds, Gerard warns that baking pumpkins with apples ‘fills the body with flatuous or windy belchings’. You’ve been warned!