Spaghetti Squash Ambivalence

Over the past several weeks, we’ve been harvesting our spaghetti squash. This is just a portion of it:

They’re a little dirty because I picked them on a damp day, and they’re out on the porch counter to dry out a bit. This looks like a lot, but we’re not actually going to be able to store — or even eat — all of them. 

Despite the fact that spaghetti squash is a winter squash with a good, tough rind, nearly every one of ours has a breach in it:

Whether nibbled on by squirrels or used as an insect nursery by squash bugs, most of these have problems that have led to a pretty quick demise. There’s no way any of these will hold up in storage over the winter, so our only option is to eat as much as we can right now, before they turn into a liquified, gooey mess. 

It’s not all that appetizing. 

I’m also not all that fond of spaghetti squash. I mean, it’s fun once in a while, but it strikes me as more of a novelty dish than a culinary staple.  

Why do we have so much of something we don’t love, you might well ask. Back in the spring we had so much rain that most of our first round of squash seeds rotted in the ground. When I went to replant, I quickly ran out of additional butternut seeds, but had lots of spaghetti squash ones. The spaghetti squash all sprouted while some more butternut didn’t, so we ended up with a lopsided harvest.