Magdalena Big Cheese

Native Seeds/SEARCH plant explorers were handed this squash decades ago by a farmer in the town of Magdalena, Sonora, and its flattened cheese-wheel silhouette supplied the rest of the name. The organization ranks it among the oldest types of cultivated squash still in circulation and maintains it in their Seed Bank Collection rather than as a modern commercial line. Traditionally it is a monsoon crop, planted to catch Sonora's summer rains at roughly 3,600 feet of high-desert elevation, though it also performs at lower elevations in Arizona. Southwestern cooks treat it as a dessert-grade squash: Native Seeds/SEARCH recommends it for pie and butter-squash preparations, and writers at Savor the Southwest steamed it, stir-fried it with tofu, and curried it. The abundant seeds are worth keeping too, either saved for the next monsoon planting or toasted with garlic and salt.