Halloween pumpkins- good for eating?

[Bowling4soup]

Are these pumpkins any good for cooking? Making soup maybe? There’s a lot on sale for 10p each now wondered if it’s worth trying to cook with one or not

You'd need to add a lot of seasonings. Don't think they are grown for flavour

No, but I roast the seeds and they are delicious.

They are technically edible, but don't bother.

I tried it one year, & wasted 20p in Sainsbo + the cost of other ingredients !

Very watery and tasteless.

Carving pumpkins are not culinary pumpkins. Watery, tasteless and fibrous.

I've never tried to eat a pumpkin/jack o'lantern. Where I grew up (check my username to understand), their only purpose was for carving on 30 -31 October or kept whole until the end of Nov as a Thanksgiving decoration. No one saw them as worth eating and 'pumpkin pie' is made from tinned pumpkin chunks, mashed smooth and highly flavoured - you'd never guess it's pumpkin.

However, I think if you want to eat the pumpkin you have to scrape out the 'flesh/meat' before you put the candle in it. The larger ones provide chunks of vegetable like a root vegetable which needs to be boiled/simmered with seasoning, just like any other giant marrow.

I made soup out of the massive one we carved. Roasted the flesh first.

It was lovely!

I have tried it before, and it was revolting. Watery and a bit fishy.

I carve out the flesh, roast in chunks in the oven, dip in egg, roll in golden breadcrumbs and fry off, serve with a katsu curry sauce (my version is coconut milk, a finely chopped onion sautéed, medium curry powder, soy sauce, honey and chopped fresh chillis plus finely chopped spring onions to serve.)

The tasty pumpkins are usually the small ones and they aren't cheap also not many places sell them. For most people unless you can get a good one stick to the butternut squashes.

Yes, you can. We grow pumpkins to sell, so always have loads left over. Not every one is great. You do have to sort of open them up and check the flesh. I cook with the nice bright orange ones and give the stringy ones to the chickens. But yes, I roast them first and then puree. They go into soup or pumpkin pie or a pasta sauce. Dogs also love pumpkin, so can be frozen and fed to them in moderate amounts.

I made some bread and some leftover Halloween chocolate brioche with ours, both delicious.

The carving pumpkins are grown for size, not flavour. The cooking pumpkins are far heavier for their size, with very dense flesh.

Carving pumpkins are watery and bland. You can spend a lot of time (and electricity) roasting them to get a bit of taste, or a lot of spices, cream etc to give flavour. But it's still trying to make a silk purse from a sow's ear and not very good value