Are Hokkaido pumpkins a thing in the US?

26 comments

1. Never heard of it.

2. No. More unfortunately, Hokkaido uni is hard to come across 😥

3. They’re called red kuri squash in English. Maybe that helps.

4. No, I’ve never seen one sold here.

5. Never seen it sold here, apparently the Western US grows quite a bit of it but nearly all of it is exported to Japan. I’m guessing outside of Japanese marketed grocery stores you can’t find it in the US.

6. We can find them, but they aren’t often used

7. No, we typically use like two or three standard pumpkin types in the United States, that isn’t one of them. I think other countries use them as a stand in for a regular pumpkin though.

8. They exist but they’re not a common item. I’ve seen them, but wouldn’t know where to find them.

9. Never heard of them

10. I had to Google it.

    We do have them at local farms around here but I never knew the name. Suffice to say they aren’t popular. Local farms in New England grow a lot of random squashes so you can usually find a variety. I just don’t always know the names of the individual varieties.

    But now if I see a Hokkaido pumpkin/red kuri squash I’ll have to try it. There seems to be a lot of good recipes.

11. I can’t say if they’re a thing, but this is the first I’ve heard of them.

12. Maybe? I don’t know what that is or what its used for.

13. After googling it, I realized I just saw them at the grocery store last night but had no idea what they were. I assumed they were JAG (just another gourd)

14. I had to look up exactly what the breed or whatever is. But the orange pumpkins we all know and love is *Cucurbita pepo.* The other one we’d buy is *Cucurbita maxima* and that is what you (OP) apparently call “Hokkaido pumpkins.” Whenever you go to a pumpkin patch in American, or at least Virginia, it’ll be 90/10 orange pumpkins to those. I think 1 year I called them an ugly pumpkin.

15. I’m from the west coast and have seen them there. It’s definitely a “hipster” thing though. Never seen them east of the Rockies.

16. [deleted]

17. No, but kabocha came over in the 2010s.

18. Never heard of it. The only think I know about Hokkaido is that I want to go there to experience that sweet sweet Japow

19. They’re pretty popular in the Pacific Northwest in that they sell pretty well in the grocery stores and people grow them in their gardens a lot. Is that what you’re looking for?

20. I see them in some grocery stores during the fall. They’re never called pumpkins though, always referred to as “red kuri squash” or “Hokkaido squash”. We’re always excited to see them on sale because they’re our favorite winter squash for making soup. The best ones have a hint of chestnut to their flavor which we absolutely love.

21. I’ve never seen branded Hokkaido pumpkins but I’ve seen pumpkins that look like them.

22. I’ve seen them here and there.

    In my limited pumpkin cooking experience, they’re tasty but nearly identical to other cultivars of squash/pumpkin.

23. I’m an avid gardener and I have grown them, but it’s not something that you’ll find in the store.

24. Squash like that maybe available at Farmers Markets that have heirloom varieties of squash, but they aren’t sold at Supermarkets.

    Pumpkins and Squash are native to North America, so there are a ton of heirloom varieties if you want to look in the right places.

25. As I have never heard of them, I have to say no.

26. Being from the west coast, I have never heard of such a thing.

    But maybe someone else on the west coast has heard of them.