The Best Fluffy Pancakes recipe you will fall in love with. Full of tips and tricks to help you make the best pancakes.
Mais, cher, look in the back of a pickup at a roadside stand this time of year and you might spot it: a long, crooked squash striped green and white like an old porch awning, heavy as a sack of rice. That’s a cushaw, and for generations of Louisiana families it, not the jack-o’-lantern pumpkin, is what went into the “pumpkin” pie. The filling bakes up pale gold, soft and mellow, with cinnamon and a spoon of cane syrup.
Here’s how to find one, how to cook it down without wrestling the peel off, and a down-home cushaw pie that works just as well with a can of plain pumpkin when the cushaw man doesn’t show. It belongs on the Thanksgiving table right beside our Louisiana pecan pie with cane syrup.
What is a cushaw?
A crookneck winter squash, older than the country. The green-striped cushaw is Cucurbita argyrosperma (older books call it C. mixta), a cousin of the pumpkin said to come from southern Mexico or the West Indies. The Hopi still grow it from saved seed, and it spread across the South into Appalachia and Louisiana. Slow Food USA put it on its Ark of Taste, a list of distinctive foods that are slipping away, because it’s mostly grown in small batches for home use and rarely reaches a grocery store shelf.
Its flesh is pale yellow, mild and a little sweet, wetter than a pie pumpkin. A good one runs 10 to 20 pounds, and a sound one keeps up to four months, so old families could cut one at Thanksgiving and another at Christmas.
Juirdmon: cushaw in Louisiana kitchens
The old Creole name. Chef John Folse, in his encyclopedia of Cajun and Creole cooking and on WAFB in Baton Rouge, says the old Creole and Cajun cooks called cushaw simmered down with sugar and spices juirdmon. That sweet cushaw went three ways: into pies, into turnovers (Folse likes it mixed with Louisiana yams), and, most of all, onto the holiday table as a side dish next to the turkey, the pork roast or the ham, standing in for candied yams.
Baked cushaw in Baton Rouge. Garden historian Randy Harelson grew up in Baton Rouge, where his mother, Wessie, put baked cushaw on the table every Thanksgiving and every Christmas, sweetened with sugar, eggs, butter, vanilla and nutmeg, alongside cornbread dressing, yams and toasted salted pecans. Harelson points cooks to the baked cushaw recipe in River Road Recipes, the Junior League of Baton Rouge cookbook first printed in 1959, which has sold more than a million copies. One reader answered his story to say her aunt still checks her well-used copy before she bakes a cushaw.
The pie that converts people. Food historian Jessica B. Harris, writing for 64 Parishes, says she’d never heard of cushaw when she came to New Orleans in the 1990s. Her friends Lolis Eric Elie and Lou Costa would swerve across lanes of highway to reach a roadside stand selling them. Her first forkful of cushaw pie won her over; she wrote that it tasted “as though pumpkin pie had been prepared by angelic hands.” Elie, for his part, remembers his grandmother’s cushaw pies made from harvests in Maringouin (in Iberville Parish), according to Slow Food’s Ark of Taste.
Did you know? Louisiana has a second favorite holiday squash. Jessica Harris recalls that Leah Chase served stuffed mirliton to let guests know a carefully made, traditional feast was coming. See what else shows up only on a Louisiana table in 9 Thanksgiving traditions that make Louisiana different →
Where to find a cushaw
Rarely at the chain grocery. Look at farmers markets and roadside stands from early fall through the holidays (New Orleans’ Crescent City Farmers Market starts seeing them around the fall equinox), or, as Harris says, off the backs of trucks in parking lots. Pick one heavy for its size with a hard rind and no soft spots. Strike out, and a can of plain pumpkin makes a fine pie with the same recipe.
Watch it done
We couldn’t find a YouTube video of a Louisiana cook making cushaw pie that we could vouch for. The closest thing is Chef John Folse’s Baked Cushaw and Yams segment on WAFB: he cuts the cushaw into squares, cooks it tender and mashes it with yams and Steen’s cane syrup, a mixture he says also makes a pie filling. Got a family cushaw video? We’d love to feature it.
Louisiana Cushaw Pie (or Pumpkin Pie, Louisiana Style)
Serves
8
Prep
1½ hrs, incl. cooking the cushaw, plus 1 hr to chill the crust
Cook
20 min crust + 45 to 55 min pie, plus 2 hrs to cool
Pot
9-inch pie plate (deep-dish is safest), roasting pan, sieve, instant-read thermometer
Ingredients
For the cushaw
- About 3 pounds of cushaw, “a good chunk of the neck,” to make 2 cups of drained purée (freeze whatever’s left)
- No cushaw? Use one 15-ounce can of plain pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling), or 2 cups of roasted, mashed pie pumpkin or Louisiana sweet potato
For the crust (or one good store-bought 9-inch crust)
- 1¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon sugar and ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 stick (½ cup) cold butter, cut in little cubes
- 3 to 5 tablespoons ice water, “just enough to hold it together”
For the filling
- 2 cups thick, drained cushaw purée
- ⅔ cup packed light brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons pure cane syrup, such as Steen’s (or 2 more tablespoons brown sugar)
- 3 large eggs, at room temperature
- ¾ cup evaporated milk, the can in every old Louisiana pantry (or heavy cream)
- 2 tablespoons butter, melted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, ½ teaspoon ground ginger, ¼ teaspoon nutmeg (freshly grated if you have it) and ⅛ teaspoon allspice
- ½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Make the crust. Whisk the flour, sugar and salt. Work in the cold butter with a pastry cutter or your fingertips until it looks like coarse meal with some pea-size bits. Sprinkle in ice water a tablespoon at a time, tossing with a fork, just until it holds together when you squeeze it. Pat it into a disk, wrap it and chill at least 1 hour.
- Cut the cushaw, carefully. Heat the oven to 375°F. Wash the cushaw. Set a damp towel under your cutting board so it can’t slide, and use your heaviest knife to cut the long neck away from the round bottom. Halve the bottom and scoop out the seeds and strings. Cut everything into big chunks, 4 to 5 inches. Leave the peel on.
- Bake it soft. Lay the chunks flesh side down in a roasting pan with about ½ inch of water. Bake 45 minutes to 1 hour, until a fork slides in “like soft butter.” Let it cool until you can handle it, then scrape the flesh off the peel with a big spoon.
- Mash it and drain it. Mash the flesh smooth with a potato masher, or purée it in a food processor for a silkier pie. Spoon it into a sieve lined with cheesecloth or a double layer of paper towels set over a bowl, and let it drain at least 30 minutes (overnight in the refrigerator is even better). Press gently. You want it thick, about like canned pumpkin. Measure 2 cups.
- Bake the crust first. Raise the oven to 400°F. Roll the dough into a 12-inch round, ease it into the pie plate, fold the overhang under and crimp. Line it with foil, fill with pie weights or dried beans, and bake 15 minutes. Lift out the foil and weights and bake 5 minutes more, until the bottom looks dry. Turn the oven down to 350°F.
- Mix the filling. In a big bowl, whisk the cushaw purée with the brown sugar, spices and salt. Whisk in the eggs one at a time, then the cane syrup, evaporated milk, melted butter and vanilla, until smooth. Don’t whip it foamy.
- Fill and bake. Set the warm crust on a sheet pan (it catches drips and makes the pie easy to move) and pour in the filling. Bake at 350°F for 45 to 55 minutes. If the crust edges are browner than a pecan shell by the 30-minute mark, cover them with foil strips or a pie shield.
- Know when it’s set. The edges should be set and the very center, a spot about 2 inches across, should still wobble a little, like Jell-O, not ripple like soup. For a sure answer, an instant-read thermometer in the center should read about 175°F. It keeps firming as it cools.
- Cool it, then chill it. Cool the pie on a wire rack for no more than 2 hours, then cover it and refrigerate. This is an egg and milk pie, so it lives in the icebox from here on. It slices cleanest cold.
Plain pumpkin way: skip steps 2 through 4 and use one 15-ounce can of plain pumpkin straight from the can; no draining needed. Half-and-half way: do as Chef Folse does with his cushaw and stir in mashed Louisiana sweet potato for half the cushaw.
Keep it safe: big knives, hot pans and egg pies
- Respect that rind. A cushaw’s hard rind is what makes it keep, and what makes a knife slip. Cut on a steady board, never hold the squash in your hand while you cut, and work on flat sides once you’ve made the first cut. Baking it in chunks means you never have to peel it raw.
- Bake it all the way. LSU AgCenter nutritionists say egg pies should be baked to at least 160°F. A set pie at about 175°F in the center is past that, so trust the thermometer over the clock.
- Two hours, then the refrigerator. The LSU AgCenter says pies made with eggs and milk should be refrigerated within two hours. Keep it covered in the refrigerator and eat it within 3 to 4 days.
How folks do it differently
Pie or “baked cushaw.” In plenty of Louisiana homes the cushaw never sees a crust; it’s baked with butter, sugar and spice and served as a side, the way Wessie Harelson did. This filling bakes fine in a buttered dish with no crust.
Cushaw, pumpkin or sweet potato. For many Louisiana families, sweet potato pie is the Thanksgiving pie; the Shreveport Times notes it’s often served in place of pumpkin. It runs deep in African American family tradition: culinary historian Michael Twitty told CNN his family’s sweet potato pie goes back at least to the 1700s, and they never had pumpkin pie at all. Cushaw sits in the middle, lighter than sweet potato and gentler than pumpkin.
The market pie lady. Frances Chauvin, a Welsh, Louisiana, native who moved to Hammond, sold pies at farmers markets there and in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. She told the Southern Foodways Alliance she baked one recipe at a time, never doubled, because a doubled crust doesn’t come out the same. 225 Magazine called her cushaw pie sweet and mellow, and Lolis Eric Elie counted it a worthy stand-in for his grandmother’s.
Not only ours. Let’s be honest: cushaw pie isn’t a Louisiana invention. Tennessee, Kentucky and the Appalachian hills love it too. What’s ours is the Creole name, the cane syrup, the yams stirred in, and the way it sits on a table next to oyster dressing and a pot of gumbo.
Lagniappe: secrets most folks don’t know
- Don’t peel it. Bake it. Wrestling a peeler around a cushaw is the hard way. Randy Harelson bakes chunks face down in a half inch of water for about an hour, and the flesh scoops right off the rind.
- Use the neck for pie. All the seeds live in the round bottom; the long neck is solid flesh, so it gives you the most purée for the least work. Save the bottom for baked cushaw.
- The runny-pie fix is draining, not more eggs. Cushaw holds more water than canned pumpkin. Louisiana Cookin’ even wrings its roasted cushaw out in cheesecloth. Drain it until it’s thick, and your pie sets clean.
- Buy one now, cut it at Christmas. A sound cushaw keeps up to four months in a cool, dry place. Or cook it all down now and freeze the purée in 2-cup bags.
- Cracks mean it baked too long. Pull the pie while the center still jiggles a little, at about 175°F. Carryover heat finishes the job on the rack.
- Say it the old way. Sweetened, spiced cushaw had its own Creole name, juirdmon, according to Chef Folse. More old words live on our Speak Cajun page.
Serving and leftovers
Serve it cool or at room temperature with lightly sweetened whipped cream and a cup of dark-roast coffee. A slice of cushaw pie next to a slice of cane syrup pecan pie is a fine way to settle the family pie argument: everybody gets both.
Keep leftovers covered in the refrigerator 3 to 4 days. Make it a day ahead to free the oven for the turducken and the cornbread dressing.
New Orleans pralines and Cajun crawfish pie are coming next. Find every holiday recipe on our Louisiana Holiday Season hub, and look up any word in Louisiana A to Z.
Keep Going Down the Bayou
- Louisiana Pecan Pie with Cane Syrup: the other holiday pie, a 1900 Slidell recipe, and the Oak Alley gardener who changed the pecan.
- Thanksgiving in Louisiana: 9 Traditions: gumbo on the back burner, fried turkey in the driveway, and more.
- Louisiana-Made Food Gifts: Steen’s, Bergeron pecans and 9 more brands with real Louisiana roots.
- Cajun Rice Dressing: the side dish that shares the table with baked cushaw.
- Cajun & Zydeco Music: A Listener’s Guide: something to play while the pie cools.
- If you liked this, you’ll love: Into the Atchafalaya, a trip through America’s largest river swamp, whose eastern side reaches into Iberville Parish, Maringouin country.
Now tell us: did your family make cushaw pie, baked cushaw, or stick with sweet potato? Did somebody grow cushaws out back, or buy them off a truck? What did your grandmother call it? Leave it in the comments, send a photo of your pie (or your biggest cushaw) to the Family Album, and share your family’s recipe on Share Your Recipe. The best ones get featured.
Sources & further reading
- Jessica B. Harris, “Louisiana’s Special Squashes,” 64 Parishes, 2021.
- Randy Harelson, “The Curious Cushaw,” Southern Garden History Society, Nov. 2, 2020.
- Slow Food USA Ark of Taste, “Green Striped Cushaw” (via LocalHarvest).
- Chef John Folse, “Baked Cushaw and Yams,” WAFB, Nov. 3, 2020; Louisiana Cookin’, “Creole Cushaw Pie,” Oct. 30, 2017.
- Southern Foodways Alliance, “Frances Chauvin, pie maker,” Gulf Coast Foodways Renaissance oral history, 2005; 225 Magazine, “Market watch,” June 5, 2007; Crescent City Farmers Market, “Creole Cushaw Pie.”
- CNN, “Pumpkin pie or sweet potato? How two pies divided our Thanksgiving tables,” Nov. 27, 2024; Shreveport Times, “Six of the most popular desserts served on Thanksgiving in Louisiana.”
- LSU AgCenter, “Pies, other foods could be dangerous at room temperature,” Nov. 10, 2009, and “Food safety rules include holiday pies,” Nov. 17, 2010; America’s Test Kitchen, “How to Know When Your Pie Is Done.”
Recipe written for GoLagniappe and cross-checked against published Louisiana cushaw recipes, standard custard-pie proportions, and LSU AgCenter food safety guidance. Checked Nov. 10, 2026.
