Pumpkin was grown behind the kitchen as an "Accidental" crop. My grandparents did not grow pumpkin for commercial reason. Occassionally, they bought pumpkin for cooking and threw the seeds behind the kitchen.
The pumpkin grew among the weeds and creeped up to 30 feet away from the seed. 
The lucky rats and the jungle fowls had the first harvest. That was the indication that the pumpkin were ripe for harvest. As an "accidental" crop that did not required much effort, the harvest wasn't bountiful. Each creeper bore four to five pumpkin fruits only. And the size of the pumpkin depends on the soil condition and rainfall, ranging from one kilogram to four kilogram.
The picture is one of the local variety of pumpkin available at the market.
The golden colour one on the right is an American variety. This is usually available locally during the Chinese New Year festive season as an ornament, as well as an offering.
During the harvest season, we ate lots of pumpkin. We ate steamed pumpkin, pumpkin fried with dried shrimps and pumpkin rice.
The pumpkin has rich nutritional values, based on research done in USA. It contains Zinc 1 mg, Selenium .50 mg,Vitamin C 12 mg, Niacin 1 mg, Folate 21 mcg, Vitamin A 2650 IU, Vitamin E 3 mg, Protein 2 grams, Carbohydrate 12 grams, Dietary Fiber 3 grams, Calcium 37 mg, Iron 1.4 mg, Magnesium 22 mg and Potassium 564 mg
Pumpkin rice is one of the easiest to cook one-pot meal.
Ingredients for pumpkin rice (for five persons)
500 gms of pumpkin, with skin peeled off and cut into 1 cm by 1 cm cube
one table spoon of dried shrimps.
two table spoons of soy sauce.
one tea spoon of salt.
three cups of rice
three cups of water.
200 gms of chicken meat cut into small strips (optional)
Put all the ingredients into the rice cooker and cook for approximately half an hour.
The sweety yummy pumpkin rice is now ready to eat. Sprinkle some white pepper onto the rice to enhance the flavour.
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