Cheese Pumpkin Cubes

Source: By Roads Magazine/Talaxian Kitchen

Maybe this story does not reflect  the typical Halloween mood. Well, after all South France is not exactly  the Halloween center of the World. On the other hand a handful of ghost do live there, and Rumania is relatively next door. 

Anyway, picture yourself in Southern France, where wine is the king and cheese goes with anything. You get the picture. Now, put there an Italian emigrant. First thing he sees are all those pumpkins that just grow there. Because he traveled here and there in the past in pursuit of a promised land and by accident tasted some of the Greek kitchen, he immediately tried to cross Pizza with Gyros and made history and lots of money at the same time. Because it was the beginning of the 19-Th. century, the whole World cried for new tastes and implemented daily to the menu unthinkable and exotic stuff, like Shark, Frog legs, shrimp and even English pudding.

Like the average emigrant, our guy is determined to make it work. So he combined all he knows and sees, then took those mountains of pumpkins and tried to do something revolutionary. Well, he didn't quite make history the same way as the Russian Revolution, but had some attention around France. Mostly because he was able to utilize huge amounts of a rather large and useless vegetable and turn it into a similarly large but very in demand amount of money.

French history of food has one constant. It doesn't matter what it is, if it's French, it will take off as a food around the World. They did this with Cognac and Champagne, so it's natural that French pumpkin squares with Romano cheese made by an Italian emigrant with a Greek twist made it to kitchens around the World. And by pure coincidence are tasty too.

2 lb. (1 kg.) fresh pumpkin.
½ cup (50 g.) flour.
2 eggs.
2 tablespoons milk.
1 cup (125g.) bread crumbs.
½ cup (60g.) Romano cheese grated.
Salt optional.
Pepper optional.
Vegetable oil for deep frying.

Slice pumpkin, remove the center and skin. Cut 1 inch (3 cm.) cubes.
Sprinkle cubes witch salt and pepper. 
Prepare on a plate flour, in a bowl blend bread crumbs and Romano cheese. 
Slightly beat eggs and milk In a second bowl. 
Heat oil. 
Dip pumpkin cubes in the flour covering them completely, next dip in eggs mixture followed by bread mix. 
Deep fry in hot oil 2 minutes or until golden.

Serve with salads or cheese dip.