If you mean for cooking and baking, we've always preferred Hubbard squash (more specifically Sweet Meat) to any pumpkin variety.

Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: Sweet Meat Squash

.. in the south, we don't use pumpkin or any other squash, we use Sweet Potatoes.
kay

We use Butternut squash almost exclusively. I read somewhere that is the variety used for most commercially canned pumpkin for pies.

Dave

ditto on the butternut squash. Also Tahitian squash. I made fresh butternut pies when they were in season and also froze a lot of the pulp. I made mini-pies with it this week, using my squash pie recipe (like pumpkin pie). Oh my! I put the crust in paper muffin liners (regular size and mini-size) and placed them all on a big cookie sheet. They are so good. I make them like this so my husband can take them in his lunch. After baking and cooling, I freeze the cooked mini-pies in zip locks. By the time he's ready for lunch, he has a good treat waiting for him. I ran out of pie crust before I ran out of pie mix this time, so I just filled some individual custard dishes and baked them at the same time. Leaving off the crust reduces fat and calories.

Really, almost any orange fleshed, sweetish type winter squash will work fine, which is most of them. What you want to avoid are the ones with pale flesh or stringy flesh -- acorns, spaghetti squash come to mind. I guess even something like an acorn or a delicata would probably work, but the color of the filling wouldn't be that nice orange-brown color probably (haven't ever really tried, so I'm just guessing).

Any flavourful winter squash will do fine!

Butternut is loved by many as it's flavourful, not too watery, and has a nice orange flesh so looks a lot like pumpkin. An acorn or pepper squash will also taste excellent, though yellower in flesh. Try whatever winter squash is on sale where you are---they all taste quite similar once the spices are added.

Botanically speaking, there's nothing to set a pumpkin apart from other winter squash; "pumpkin" is just the name we give in our culture to squashes that are orange and roundish.

Happy pie making!

Z

I really prefer kabocha squash. I like to use the orange ones but I don't think the outside color really makes much of a difference really.

The flesh is sweet, dry and smooth. But I've read they need to be matured off the vine. Basically wait a month or two before using them so they can become more sweet. I don't know about that from experience though, I've not had a kabocha that wasn't sweet and smooth.

The flesh is also a nice orange color for pies. It shouldn't matter what color the pie is, just that it tastes good but sometimes a nice color just makes the pie end up looking more traditional.

To open a kabocha is not easy though. I've found the best way (and the way recommended to me by "Gene the Pumpkin Man", the first person who recommended these to me for pies) is to drop the squash onto the cement outside. Or in some cases you might have to throw it on the ground hard to break it open. I don't do this indoors because I worry for my floor. These babies are tough but oh so tasty.

~Cindy

I have read that Neck Pumpkins are the primary ones used for making pie, although when I grow them, I just eat them like other winter squash, plus there's lots to freeze!!!
Attached is an article with photos of Neck Pumpkins.

Carla in Sac

Here is a link that might be useful: Neck Pumpkins

Hubbard, Long Island cheese and Jarrahdale/Queensland blue all make excellent pies.

The Libby canned pumpkin pie filling, and probably 99% of commercial pumpkin pies are from Dickinsons squash, which are related to Long Island Cheese, Butternut, and Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck (longneck). All are C. moschata and resist squash vine borrers.

I use Long Island Cheese, Butternut or Long Neck squashes.
If you can find a farmers market, perhaps the pumpkins or squashes may be lower in cost.
Here, they want .80 to 1.00 a lb in the grocery stores, yet at the farmers market the price I paid was 30 cents a lb.

Thanks all! Some great suggestions. I now have some idea of what to plant in the spring :)

My MIL used to make cushaw pies and they were excellent...not orange just a golden color....but oh so good.

jude

My MIL used to make cushaw pies and they were excellent...not orange just a golden color....but oh so good.

jude