A pumpkin story

buying vegetables in the alley

Do you have pumpkin I asked? Which one, the green ones, she said, pointing behind me to a basket of courgettes/zucchini, whereupon I quickly remembered that the Nepali word for pumpkin which I’d used, (farsi/pharsi), is more equivalent to squash, and one must clarify. No I said, looking around to see if she had the orange pumpkin I needed. She did, and went over to where an assortment gathered on a top shelf. She stretched and groaned dramatically and even though I’m not much taller than she is, I started towards her to see if I could help. Turned out she could reach them fine, and after selecting one, she came back with it to the counter. How much? A kilo, please.

Sizing up the vegetable, she calculated along which dimples (that’s what those pumpkin segments are called, right?) to cut into, using a knife that looked far less sturdy than was needed for the job.

In she went with the blade: once, twice, while keeping up a running commentary, not without relish, of how old she was and how hard it was to cut.

After making her incisions, she handed the pumpkin to a man waiting alongside me at the shop for his turn to buy… whatever he’d come there for.

Break it open, she commanded.

She was enjoying herself immensely.

He stared at her for a moment, startled. He clearly hadn’t been expecting that. But it hadn’t been a request, not exactly, and one does not refuse an auntie of a certain age. He took it and with a little pressure, leaned down hard, cracked it along the lines she’d cut, handed it back.

Putting my piece on the scale, she actually chortled with delight. So close, she said, or something like it; and she had every reason to be delighted; it was a scant 60 grams off of a kilo and I, of course, agreed that she’d done an amazing job. I paid and went home with my pumpkin wedge, and she turned to serve the other, still slightly bewildered customer.

Once home, I discovered, armed with a cutting board and a much heftier knife, that it was indeed a very dense pumpkin.