#289: The Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
Waste not, want not.
For Halloween I carved one of the 15 million pumpkins grown in the UK. A trip to buy chickpeas was waylaid when I was attracted to the pile of glowing orange objects. I carried my pumpkin home in my arms, carved it, and I now have a grinning friend to accompany me at my dining room table.
But a pumpkin lantern is a fairly familiar household object, and something Katie Harling-Lee has written about before. What interested me this year was the pumpkin’s insides.
Fleshy and alien, lined with fingernail like seeds, the inside of a pumpkin is an obscure place. It’s easy to decide to ditch the slimy, stringy flesh, but I’m trying to be conscious about the way I celebrate holidays. I’m trying to minimise those spur-of-the-moment festive buys to help the environment, so as I scooped out the insides, I knew I needed to find a way to consume them.
The flesh itself made a tasty pumpkin risotto; warming and filling, and perfectly autumnal. The seeds I boiled in salted water, dried them out, and then roasted in oil and chilli. I feel like a food blogger describing this, but actually my main aim was reducing waste. I’m not a natural cook.
As Christmas approaches, I wonder again at the number of one-off objects we buy for the festive season that go to waste quickly afterwards: Christmas crackers, wrapping paper, single-use decorations, and advent-calendar packaging. I would hate to take the joy out of the festivities. I would hate to be the ethical party pooper, turning off Christmas lights to save energy. And yet I want to be more conscious about the way that I celebrate things.
I want to think twice before I make purchases. I want to own decorations, but ones that I will use year after year. I want to wrap presents, but in recyclable wrapping paper. I want to still carve pumpkins, but make sure I eat as much of them as is possible after.
I’m so aware that these small changes will not solve the climate crisis. I’m also aware that nobody is perfect, and that there are many things I will get wrong when it comes to celebrating holidays. But I see this as a challenge to celebrate in a new, more thoughtful and creative way, and I encourage you to do the same. You might just end up with a tasty roasted snack to nibble at work.
