Pattypan
Do you know the muffin pan, the muffin pan, the muffin pan?
Today’s New York Times Spelling Bee letters:
A, E, M, N, P, T, and center Y (all words must include Y).
Merriam-Webster says…
Silly little dictionary! Don’t you know that pattypan can’t possibly be a word if the New York Times says it ain’t?
For further fascinating facts, check out the Spelling Bee Master.
What’s your favorite dord* from today’s puzzle?
My Two Cents
Short and sweet as a Saturday treat. At least I hope I can keep it that way. Oh, and happy May Day, by the way. Here in Spain most everything was closed because, like most of the world, we celebrate International Worker’s Day today. Known as Labor Day in the U.S. and Labour Day in Canada, both celebrated the first Monday of September.
The first Monday of September is also the third and final day of the 3-Day Novel Contest, a Canadian literary invention from 1977 that has taken the world by storm. The basic premise: write a short novel in three days. Since it’s Canadian, the honor system is the way they choose to keep track of whether or not you really did write your novel over Labor Day weekend only.
After participating on and off since around 2007, I was finally long-listed for my efforts last year. I highly recommend trying this adrenaline-inducing, sleep-depriving challenge. Registration for this year’s contest is now open.
Anyway, we’ve gotten quite off track. So much for short and sweet.
A scallop or a squash?
The summer squash is a type of Cucurbita pepo and comes in several varieties, including tromboncino, crookneck, straightneck, and probably the best known: zucchini. Summer squashes are harvested before they ripen completely, their rind still edible. Now, although almost all summer squashes are Cucurbita pepo, not all Cucurbita pepo are summer squashes. Kinda like that squares/rectangles thing you may have learned in school.
The pattypan — also a summer squash — looks like a UFO from the baroque period and comes in the same plethora of colors as other squash, namely green, yellow, and white.
The name pattypan apparently comes from a pan used for baking patties, which must have resembled this oddly-shaped gourd. It also has a bunch of other names, some of them quite regional:
▹ scallop squash
▹ peter pan squash
▹ sunburst squash
▹ schwoughksie squash (pronounced “shwooxie squash”) when grown in Poughkeepsie, New York
Was that last one regional enough for you?
Pattypan squashes can be eaten in different ways. In Poland there are pickled in sweet vinegar. In other countries they are sliced and baked or fried. Some people like to scoop the flesh out and season it before reinserting it and warming it in the oven. Others use the empty husk of the gourd as a container for other food.
Here are four ways of preparing pattypans.
Muffin tops!
The dictionary mentions that pattypan is also a term used today to refer to muffin pans.
To be honest, I’ve never been a huge fan of muffins. I don’t dislike them and will certainly gobble one down if the chance to do comes up, but muffins are not at the top of my list of favorite foods.
The word muffin does bring to mind two things, though:
- An episode of the 1990s show Seinfeld, aptly called “The Muffin Tops”, in which Elaine helps her former boss sell only muffin tops after he steals her idea for doing so. Hijinks ensue, as usual.
- The nursery rhyme “The Muffin Man”. Now, because it originated in England, it refers to English muffins, which are not the same as the sweeter American counterpart.
The lyrics are:
Do you know the muffin man? The muffin man, the muffin man. Do you know the muffin man Who lives in Drury Lane?
Drury Lane is a real street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London. I have no idea if they still deliver muffins there. If you happen to know, you may confirm so in the comments section.
Here is the picture of the sheet music cover for Harry King’s setting of the song in 1889. You can tell the British took their nursery rhymes quite seriously.
And here is a video with the song. Now, the muffin man gets some stiff competition from the ice cream man and the fruit-stand man, but manages to pull ahead again in the end.
So… I did manage to keep today’s article relatively short. As for sweet, that’s up to you to decide.
In any case, if you’ve ever had pattypan squash, please share your experience or recipe with us. Just don’t tell the editors of the Spelling Bee puzzle, because they decided that pattypan is a dord.*
You can check out my previous entry on another dord* here:
*What the heck is a dord, you ask? Here’s the answer: