Squash or be squashed

I was trying to cook dinner, not build character.

Throughout 2024, I’ve been making an effort to improve my skills in the kitchen. But one seemingly innocuous vegetable was responsible for turning a humdrum cooking session into a dramatic culinary rollercoaster ride: the butternut squash.

A few months ago, this hearty autumnal vegetable first arrived on my doorstep in a Hellofresh delivery box. For those unaware, with Hellofresh you choose the meals you want to cook that week, and then the company delivers all the ingredients you’ll need, portioned exactly to the quantity of food you want to make. This varies – mushrooms usually arrive cut, but green beans don’t – and as it turned out, neither do butternut squashes.

Although most Hellofresh recipes are accessible to the beginner (or lazy) cook, the butternut squash should have come with a warning. Having neither grown up with it, nor eaten it at restaurants, I learned the hard way that it’s an absolute BEAST of a vegetable. My usual chopping knife was no match.

Things had started out innocently enough. I managed to saw the squash through to the centre… and then, nothing. The knife couldn’t go any further – and I couldn’t pull it back out.

This was troubling. I cursed my past self who had naïvely ordered ‘butternut squash korma curry’ from Hellofresh, thinking I could expand my cooking repertoire with a vegetable I knew nothing about.

I had many questions about the monstrosity on my chopping board. What was it supposed to taste like? How was the texture meant to be? It was very hard – should I have waited for it to soften, like an avocado? Dinner was not going to be ready on time.

After some fevered googling, I learned that it’s nothing like an avocado. Related to the pumpkin, butternut squashes, according to Gardeners’ World, “grow from large, vibe-like plants and bear fruit in summer and autumn.”

Vibe-like plant, eh? That sounded intriguing. I dutifully googled that but only found results about ‘house plants to give your home a jungle vibe’. It took me longer than I care to admit, to realise it was a typo for ‘vine-like plants’. You can imagine my disappointment when I discovered that butternut squashes don’t just grow from *vibes*. Regardless, I might still insist this to be true, since I have a reliable source to quote, typo be damned. Autumn is a season of magic, after all.

So there I stood at my kitchen counter, staring at this bulletproof butternut squash that seemed undaunted by the knife wedged in its centre. It was too late to call friends for reinforcements. I didn’t know my neighbours well enough to admit to them that I had been defeated by a vibe-like vegetable and needed assistance. In that moment, I realized: it was just me and the squash. It had to be. This was our destiny.

Now, I’d like to tell you that I summoned my inner cavewoman and finished the chop with an almighty roar. This is not what happened. More worrier than warrior, I relied less on brute strength and more on deep breathing exercises, in order to gradually manoeuvre the knife out of the squash.

Then I surveyed the situation. It dawned on me that I’d have to use the Big Knife for the first time ever. A five-piece knife set lived in my furnished flat, and up until that point, I’d managed to avoid using all but the two smallest ones. Extracting the feared Big Knife from its holder, it sounded like a sword being drawn from its sheath. Perhaps, when all was said and done, I was a warrior after all.

That evening, I learned that one does not simply chop a butternut squash. One wrangles with it, wrestles with it. One takes deep, calming breaths while patiently sawing it with the Big Knife. One does not look away, never.

And then, at long last, the moment arrives: neat little orange cubes, all ready to be seasoned, arranged on a baking sheet, and roasted.

I put the Big Knife down with relief and wiped the sweat off my forehead. It would be smooth sailing from here on out – I hoped.

In fact, it was better than I’d hoped. Enough time had passed that it was late and I was getting hangry. I no longer cared how the meal turned out, I just wanted to eat something. I certainly didn’t anticipate it becoming the best meal I’d had all week.

The roasted squash – something I’d never tasted before – had caramelized but somehow wasn’t too sweet. It matched well with the korma curry paste (one of my favourite British/Indian inventions) and made for a satisfyingly hearty stew. Few vegetables are something to write home about, but I was so impressed with this one that I told my friends and family. That squash had definitely descended from *vibes*.

So a few weeks later, when I saw the same recipe appear again on the Hellofresh website, I signed up for it immediately. In my heady, squash-fueled passion, I’d completely forgotten what it had taken to get there.

And so, I found myself facing a beast on my chopping board yet again. I recalled my tools: patience, deep breathing, the Big Knife. Once more, it was time.

But this creature was even harder than the last one. As I wedged the knife into it, willing it to chop in half, my breaths started to shorten and I felt tears in my eyes. I let go and stepped away. How had I been so foolish, I asked myself, as I wept. I have such a busy day, I can’t spend a big chunk of it grappling with a squash.

I returned to the kitchen and assessed the situation. I’d already peeled the squash and the Big Knife was jammed halfway through. To inaccurately quote Robert Frost, “the only way out is through.“ I had started it, now I had to finish it. Wielding the Big Knife, I cleared my mind and took a deep breath.

25 minutes later, I stuck a tray of neatly chopped and seasoned squash into the oven for roasting. It was over.

In the end, my ‘korma curry’ was just as pleasing as the first time. As before, I enthusiastically informed my friends and family – though I left out the bit about the weeping.

A few weeks later, as the autumn season set in, I started hankering after stews. Lentils and butter beans were great, but they just weren’t enough. I needed that sweet, sweet squash.

So for the first time in my life, I actively bought a butternut squash at the supermarket. Setting me back just over £1, it weighed down my grocery bag but not my grocery bill. I carried it home, feeling rather proud of myself.

Why did I do this? Would I never learn? Well – I learned a little. At the store I could feel out the ‘softest’ one. This trick served me well, because I managed to chop the squash without any tears, taking only 15 minutes. I made another ‘korma curry’ – and reliably, it was a delight.

Later on, my friend patiently listened as I regaled him with the drama over whatsapp. Then, I had a brainwave. I had frozen chopped onions in my freezer. Could I get the same for butternut squash? I did a quick search and – yes! I excitedly told my friend about this, while praising the heavenly spirits (and supermarkets) for their grace on this important matter.

It turned out that he had known about this the whole time. He tactfully replied, “I was going to ask earlier if you were aware of this, but it felt indelicate.”

So were my squash-based toils and travails worth it? Honestly, I’d rather not think about the answer to that question, because it’s probably ‘no’. Why look back to the past? The path to a brighter future, and more seasonal stews, is now sitting in my freezer: a convenient bag of chopped butternut squash.