What is your pot made of?

It sounds like the yuck that many gourds and squashes have that is their defense when cut as they grow. Supposedly, when they're fully ripe the yuck dries up and goes away, but, of course, market produce is usually a bit underripe.

I've only roasted kabocha, never boiled, so I haven't experienced your problem, but some general tips that might work if no one chimes in with a better idea. Try alcohol. It cuts through a lot of those kinds of plant goo. Probably a good amount of scrubbing too. Another thought, you might try boiling a bunch of baking soda then giving it a good scrub. I don't know if it'll help at all, but baking soda is kind of magical and gets lots of stuff off of pots.

Good luck!

I'd use an SOS pad.

I would probably try Barkeeper’s Friend and a sponge with the blue scrubbie backing. Neither the BKF nor the blue scrubbie will scratch. I used both of these to get baked-on oil off a non-stick griddle this week. I also use BKF and a blue scrubbie (a different one from the one in the kitchen) to clean water spots off my glass shower panels.

When I've burnt something on the bottom of a pot and really can't get it off, I'll put a couple of inches of water in with a tablespoon of dishwasher machine detergent set it on the stove to simmer for 10 minutes. Everything just lifts off.

Maybe rubbing alcohol on a coarse rag?

Then a very good wash or 2?

I think gasoline or paint thinner will work without damaging cookware..

Just don't do it near a fire or indoors. Gasoline and paint thinner can easily be washed away.

dcarch

Mineral spirits (paint thinner) would work, but the smell is so pervasive, it can be difficult to wash off, unlike rubbing alcohol.

IMO, better not to mess with gasoline, since it is so highly combustible.

Alcohol and mineral spirits are equally as flammable as gasoline.

I'd worry about the unique 'taste' of petroleum products being left behind. I like the idea of the boiling water and dishwasher detergent.... or just baking soda... as mentioned before.

That stuff is hard to get off just by scrubbing. If you let it dry, it'll probably come off easier by chipping and peeling. As Dcarch said, an organic solvent will probably work great, but I try to only use mild things in my cookware.

it just occurred to me that this will work well:

1. Fill wax-xy pot with some cooking oil.

2. Heat cooking oil to high heat. That will melt all the wax into cooking oil.

3. After oil cools down, pour away as much as possible, add dish washing liquid to pot and wash leftover oil away.

dcarch

To answer lizbeth-, I have stainless steel pot. Thank you all for your input

Dcarch, I read somewhere that it's actually a resin. Will oil work on that?

Stainless steel pot....I repeat....an sos pad!!

I'm not familiar with the waxy film you describe, but I would try Dawn dishwashing liquid (great for removing grease) or Bar Keepers Friend or baking soda and use a green scratcher pad. I have also used SOS pads on stainless.

It's the same stuff that gets on your hands when you cut up a not 100% ripe butternut that doesn't come off until you can pick at it sufficiently, or use a solvent.

Rubbing alcohol (70% isopropyl) is surely not as highly flammable as gasoline?

Anyway, I find it works well to clean greasy dirt & grime, and it's a good disinfectant.

I'm not quite understanding what you're calling a waxy film that is on ripe squashes. I've grown squashes of all sorts, including Butternut, and I don't recall there ever being more than a thin layer, never so much that it got on my hands and had to be picked off. I'm wondering if you are buying your squash from somewhere that puts a heavy coating of wax on so they stay fresh longer.

It's unripe gourds and squashes. My sentence was clumsy. It's a sap. It's not wax, it's in the squash. I don't grow them, but the way I've heard it, if you cut a young squash while it's growing the sap forms a scab.

It doesn't happen often, but I've had it on my hands. It makes a thick, lumpy layer, that shrinks as it dries, and hurts. I've tried scrubbers--though nothing like steel wool on my hands!--and they don't work. I can't remember what did exactly, but it was likely a combination from baking soda, vinegar, alcohol or hydrogen peroxide, just because those are my go-to cleaners, but I think something in there worked well enough for it to stop hurting.

This is a real thing. I believe you that you haven't encountered it, but it's nothing like wax. Wax, whether plant based, mineral or bee spit, comes off easily with hot water, and cracks when it dries. This gourd resin is way different.

The natural plant forming coating? Clean them before cooking. Warm/hot tap water with vinegar or baking soda, citric acid. salt maybe...with scrubbie. In a bowl before cooking. Even hot kettle water. Pretty easy to clean a stainless rinse bowl with bonAmi or BarKeeps.. (I'm just agreeing with Pllog and others keeping it food grade on food).

I always toss my husk covered sappy sticky tomatillos in a bowl of warm/hot water briefly.

Avoid rubbing alcohol on hands. It will burn and irritate the top few skin layers.

yes, that's right. Wax was the first word came to my mind to describe ot, but it's actually like resin or sap, sticky substance.

So, has anything worked yet?

Try baking soda. Make a paste with a bit of water and use a scrubby.

I have cooked more than my share of Kobocha, buttenut, confetti, acorn, hubbard, marina del chioggia, red warty thing and likely others.....I have a friend who for many years planted an acre of squash and gourds, deep in the acres of corn so they wouldn't be pilfered. He took great pleasure in giving the squash and gourds away....but alas he announced this spring he wasn't going to do it again.

Never have I experienced any waxy sappy substance that made a hard to wash film....on me or my knife of the pan I cooked them in. I think what you describe must be due to something other than the squash. And I repeat....a soap filled steel wool pad will remove it and it won't hurt your stainless steel pan.

Hard winter squashes do have a natural waxy coating, but many fruits and vegetables are also waxed to help preserve their freshness.

I always bake mine. Boiling waters down the flavor, IMO.

And I use gloves to clean and to wash dishes.

Carol, it's not wax nor anything applied. It's not the hard shell. It's part of the fruit. A sap that hardens. Look it up. I got it on my hands, twice, from cutting up butternut. jjjjade H used the word "waxy" to try to communicate what the substance was like, not what it was. Wax is easy to remove. This natural resin stuff is not.

Everybody, Just because you haven't encountered it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I've handled and cooked boatloads of squashes and gourds without any such issue. I've only noticed it with butternut, and only on my hands, not the pot, but I've never boiled a kabocha. Other people have encountered it in such harmless seeming fruits as cucumbers. Many talk about the way the sap scabs over cuts in the squash.

I know it's hard to wrap your head around something outside of your experience, but poohpoohing the experiences of others, and telling them they're mistaken with no evidence other than lack of personal experience is counterproductive.

Linda is right that an arduous scrub with SOS or similar should eventually remove it from stainless, and more easily than with a nylon or plant fiber scrubby. Friction, however, will only do it by brute force. This stuff is a heck of a lot harder to abrade than char (which, itself, comes off much more easily when treated with baking soda and hot water). I don't know if scouring powder has a chemical benefit that could make it easier.

Hm. I think the char solution is specifically about the burnt on carbon, but maybe it could work here? Couldn't hurt. Or the one for polymerized fat. The first one is cover the whole of the substance to be removed with baking soda. Cover completely with paper towel(s) or rags. Boil some water and pour just enough on top to damped the towel, but not get it wringing wet or soaking the baking soda. Leave overnight. Rinse and give a light scrub. If some heavy char remains, repeat.

For things like the brown spots on oven racks, best done under the sun, but you can use a low oven: spray the area with hydrogen peroxide (yes, it's safe to use in the kitchen). Cover with baking soda. Lightly spray a little more hperoxide. You want the chemical reaction happening on that which you are removing. Let stand in the sun for a couple hours (or in a cooling (previously heated low and turned off) oven). Lightly scrub. Repeat as necessary.

jjjjade H, have you tried any of the suggestions? Or are you asking for next time? Do you know anyone who cooks kabocha the same way who might have tips? Do you think it would be useful to get a pot from a thrift shop just for boiling the kabocha and just not worry about the resin building up on it?

I've grown, harvested and handled winter squash myself - often.

I am not presuming to know exactly what was being referred to, since the info seems limited, and we haven't seen the problem with our own eyes.

Once upon a once, I grew pumpkins.... lots. After the pumpkins were getting large I would go out and carve names in the pumpkins for my kids and those of their friends. The kids were always delighted to find a pumpkin with their name on it. I guess this is what you're referring to as the healing sap the fruit produces.

Still, I've never had it coat a pan... or me. I don't remember needing to clean-off my knife with anything special after doing the name-thing.

I've certainly had the 'sap' from the flesh coat my hands when cutting very fresh winter squash, but since I've never boiled it with the skin on, maybe I missed something.

Yes, that's the sap if it's making a hard bit that covers where the skin was broken..

Kate, I suspect it didn't have a chance to harden on your knife before you cleaned it.

And Carol made me think of something. I'm wondering if it gets worse with heat? I tend to wash my hands with extremely hot water, many times while I'm cooking., and the OP boiled her squash.

This is one of those strange things that people rarely talk about but that happens far more than one would suspect. Like the blue onions thing. I think I had heard about that one before it happened to me but it was really freaky.

Has anyone suggested ammonia?

Has any one suggested a soak with hot water and ammonia?

I haven't tried any method yet, yet just read through everybody's input and figure out which i should try first. so many of them; hard to decide as if I am picking a husband, lol. I haven't heard anybody i know boiling them, for nobody is as lazy as i am using the simplest method without cutting. Of course i do scrub them well before boil them. Since the flesh becomes so creamy and mushed, i just scoop when eating. So easy and no fuss, yet just this residue created by the pumpkin.

Please do report back - inquiring minds and all that...

I gathered most materials suggested here laying on the countertop awaited to be experimented one after another.

I normally don't use DAWN. But my regular dish liquid did not work, so I followed some suggestions here and bought a DAWN Platinum 4x More Grease Cleaning Power. I asked my husband, whose arms are full of muscles, to use regular scrubbing pad with DAWN. It did not work at all. Then, he still used DAWN with a steel wool. The grime was getting loose gradually, although not quick. OK, so DAWN with steel wool worked! YEAH!

I don't bother to try others, then, since this one worked.