This is a blue hubbard squash. A very, very small blue hubbard because blue hubbards? Are ginormous.

When my mother was wrenched from her beloved Boston all those long years ago only to be dropped into the backwoods known as "outside Philadelphia" there were many things she missed. Oh let's not be coy. She missed everything. The following is in order of that which she lamented most frequently: Bonwit Tellers, Brigham's ice cream, the dress shops in Brookline, clam chowder (the HORROR of "manhattan" clam chowder which was what outside Philadelphia brought to the table when you ordered clam chowder), the Cape, Howard Johnson's and blue hubbard squash.

Yes, blue hubbard makes the list with Bonwits-- go figure.

Every Thanksgiving the tragic ritual around the missing blue hubbard squash began. "Mom, what about butternut? Yellow? Acorn?" But to each suggestion she would only sigh and shake her head. No, they simply wouldn't do. And we would follow the shopping cart, our heads lowered in the shared grief that Thanksgiving really isn't Thanksgiving without hubbard squash even though we hated squash and had no idea about the differences between varieties.

If I were to place a series of small bowls in front of you, each containing a sampling of the different squashes known to man, it seems very possible you might not know one from the other either. But my mom? Oh the subtlety of her palette. She could tell you which was which without a moment's hestitation and, if it were a contest, we all know which one would win.

As life would have it, I now live in the very bosom of blue hubbard country and my dear mother, helas, is still living outside Philadelphia (rest assured she now has grown to love many things that are unique to that region including snapper soup, cheesesteaks, The Philadelphia Inquirer, -- although she has lost two of her favorites: Bookbinders and B.Altman's).

So, in the next few weeks, I will get a full-sized blue hubbard squash which is to say I will have to carry it with both arms. And, with a massive Chinese knife or a chainsaw, I will cut the rock-hard squash into pieces that will fit onto a baking sheet and place them in the oven. When the chunks have softened, I will scrape out the good-eating part and mash it into a lovely, rich, orange-colored mass. The squash will then be frozen in a tupperware and shipped to an address outside Philadelphia.

Ahh, it's the little things in life, n'est-ce pas? And, as much as I like making my mother happy with this crazy family ritual, what I love most is fighting against the giant supermarket chains who want to minimize our choices to whatever is easiest for them to carry and sell in bulk. And believe me, blue hubbard squash ain't it.

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