Meaning
The Jamaican (calabaza) pumpkin — a dense, sweet, deep-orange-fleshed squash used in pumpkin soup, pumpkin rice, and 'pumpkin rundown'. Richer and firmer than the watery Halloween pumpkin, it flavours and colours many one-pot dishes, thickening and sweetening the Saturday soup pot and turning rice a golden orange. A staple of the Jamaican kitchen and the provision ground, it is grown on a sprawling vine in the yard, and a wedge of pumpkin is a standard, valued addition to soup and stew.
Examples
-
Add pumpkin to di soup fi sweeten it.
Add pumpkin to the soup to sweeten it.
-
Pumpkin rice go good wid stew chicken.
Pumpkin rice goes well with stewed chicken.
-
Di pumpkin thick up di whole pot.
The pumpkin thickened the whole pot.
Origin
The tropical calabaza squash, called 'pumpkin' in Jamaica; a mainstay of soups and rice dishes.
How it’s used
The dense West Indian pumpkin (calabaza), not the large hollow jack-o'-lantern kind. Key to Saturday soup.