Squash Hands
We made a lentil-vegetable tagine from the Forks Over Knives Flavor book (by Darshana Thacker) this evening and it called for something called chayote squash, which I have never heard of, cooked with, eaten, you get the idea. I decided to see how easily we could find some, and even though a google search made it seem like it was only available at specialized grocery stores in the city, we were able to find them at our Whole Foods (google did tell me that we could sub in zucchini in case we couldn’t find it).
In the process of searching for chayote squash, some blog posts and articles popped up that made me do a bit of a double-take, and that was how to prep them so you didn’t get SQUASH HANDS. And I was like, uh, what? Turns out that chayote squash has a sap that is released when you cut into it, which some find aggravates their skin and leads to a contact dermatitis. You can use food-grade gloves as a workaround.
My husband said we had such gloves, but when I started prepping for dinner he was in our gym working out. I looked all over in all the spots where we would have gloves (the drawers from our covid days that contain masks and wipes, obviously as a start) and couldn’t find them anywhere (turns out they were on the top shelf in our coat closet near the toolbox- the one spot I didn’t look!). I could have waited until my husband got back to ask him. But did I? Of course not. If you know anything about me, you know that I’m a bit stubborn in these moments and plow on. And that is what I did, cutting the squash up with my bare hands. And did my hands get weird? YES THEY DID.
I saw some people posted on Reddit that their hands burned and peeled when they prepped chayote squash- luckily I didn’t experience anything like that. But my hands, especially my fingertips, got super dry and almost plastic-y feeling (like I had covered them in one of those peel-away face masks) and now, hours later, they still feel a bit stiff and dry to me.
When I was looking into this, I remembered an episode of Below Deck Mediterranean that we watched not too long ago where the chef walked off and Captain Sandy and the rest of the crew had to try to whip up a dinner on their own. They were trying to figure out how to prep and serve lobster to the guests. I chuckled because my exploration for how to avoid squash hands felt a bit like a vegetable version of this dilemma. And even after all of that, I just ignored the advice and used my bare hands anyways. :-D
And…how did it taste? Really good! The squash is set on top of the dish and steams for 20 minutes, and it is very light and crisp. The cauliflower cooked perfectly too and was super crisp-tender. I liked this one a lot.
