Who has eaten a real pumpkin? Not the kind that come already pureed in a can, and not the pre-made, pumpkin pie filling. Well, I hadn’t. Pumpkin seeds, I was all over. Butternut squash I can roast with the best of them. And let’s just say, I get a kick out of kabocha. But pumpkin, I had never had the joy of making.

Pumpkins had always been too round, too cumbersome, too heavy to negotiate all on their own. I would have visions of me as Sweeney Todd, wielding my kitchen cleaver to hack a whole pumpkin to smithereens, in the hopes of obtaining one salvageable wedge to roast. I read a lot of British cookbooks, and thumb through the occasional British food magazine, and they are always using pumpkin in its various forms. But do they expect me to hack up the whole squash as well? I might be into the Slow Food Movement, but come on, even I require some amount of accessibility in the foods that I prepare.

But then I saw them at a produce market. Like someone’s busted Jack O’Lantern, shrink wrapped, and piled high, just in time for the holiday season– wedges of pumpkin, ready for roasting. So I brought one home.

Roasted very simply until soft, with pinches of salt and pepper, and a glug of olive oil, this pumpkin was an altogether different sort of squash. I drizzled the roasted wedge with a balsamic reduction, and gave it a healthy sprinkling of toasted pumpkin seeds. It was delicious! The pumpkin was unlike any other squash, as it had a soft webbing, like spaghetti, of intricate flesh. It was subtle and sweet, warm and delightful.

Who’s to say if I would ever get violent with my own complete pumpkin in order to cut it into wedges, but I will definitely keep on the lookout for sizable pieces at my produce market again. I hope you will too.