They'll eat anything.
Wow! Squash that is delicious. That sure beats the squash you can buy today.
How do they know they weren’t GMO seeds?
Nonsense! We’ve gotten lots of those. Plant your zuccinni too close to pumpkins or similar plants and you get cross pollening.
odd wording to call them rare and extinct in the same paragraph but still a pretty cool story. They may be rare today in that they just started growing them but if they were extinct then they were a bit past rare.
Similar thing happened years ago at a dig in the Anasazi cliff dwellings in Arizona. They found a pot with some beans in it that were unknown species. Planted them and found them to be great for the specific area in that they can be cooked without soaking and at lower temps in mountain air. Also very protein rich and ‘sweet’ to the taste.
They are now available commercially at most stores as Anasazi beans and I highly recommend them.
I want to try this squash.
I can think of at least 2 other fad foods that came from urns or crocks that were stored away hundreds of years ago. I guess seeds are the new archeological treasure find.
I call BS! There is no such thing as “delicious” squash.
Why I support a repository of seeds (regardless of the politics behind it).
Happy New Year, greeneyes!
This is interesting. I guess it probably indicates that my five year old packages of swiss chard & pea seeds are not necessarily bad.
If God intended me to eat squash, He would have made them out of meat.
The story that accompanied the "Gete~Okosomin" squash seeds was that they were found in a clay ball at an archaeological excavation near the Wisconsin~Illinois border. It went on to suggest that the dating of the clay ball indicated that the seeds were more than 800 years old. The story captured the imagination of seed savers and gardeners across the continent. It is a good story, but is it true?
When asked, Kenton Lobe, instructor in international development studies and one of the CMU Farm's founders, smiles. "The truth of the story of these squash seeds is still emerging," he said. Further digging into the history reveals that they were originally gifted to David Wrone, a University of Wisconsin emeritus historian, by some elder women gardeners from the Miami Nation in Indiana in 1995.
It seems unlikely that a particularly popular variety of squash or any other plant would become “extinct”. If it was any good the seeds would be widespread and unlikely to be lost. I imagine that the varieties that taste bad, grow poorly or are hard to store would be more likely to disappear.
http://www.ehow.com/how_4906086_prepare-chayote.html