Jim Dixon wrote about food for WW for more than 20 years, but these days most of his time is spent at his olive oil-focused specialty food business Wellspent Market. Jim’s always loved to eat, and he encourages his customers to cook by sending them recipes every week through his newsletter. We’re happy to have him back creating some special dishes just for WW readers.

Expect some surprise when you serve raw winter squash. Even though its name comes from the Narragansett Native American word “askutasquash,” which translates to “eaten raw or uncooked,” not many eat it that way. But grating the squash with a food processor renders it carrotlike and easy to eat (while a box grater can do the job, a food processor works much better and faster).

I started using grated raw winter squash in salads after I found some big Hubbards and kabochas at a farmstand in the Gorge years ago. I think these and the rest of the similarly pumpkinlike Cucurbita maximas have better flavor and texture than the more common butternut. Once you cut a big squash up, you’ll be eating it for a few days, and while it’s delicious, I wanted to take a break from roasted squash. So I grated some and added it to a salad.

The irregular, sometimes warty-looking outer skin of some Cucurbitas might scare some shoppers off, but you can eat it. In fact, pretty much all winter squash have edible skins, except butternut. Its skin has a hard, flinty quality, and you can feel even the smallest bits of raw butternut skin in your mouth. But if you grate any of the others unpeeled, you’d never know it once the squash is in the salad.

While they start to show up in the produce section while the weather’s still warm, there’s a reason they’re called winter squash. The fruits need to be cured after harvest to make them last longer and taste better. In late summer and early fall, when the squash are fully mature, farmers let them sit in a warm place with good circulation for a couple of weeks. Then they bring them inside to cure at room temperature for a month or more, allowing the squash to dry out while their sugars concentrate. They taste best in the winter.

This simple variation of the French classic céleri remoulade shows off the raw squash. The old-school version combines grated celeriac, aka celery root, with a simple tarragon mayonnaise sometimes flavored with cornichons and capers. I prefer the Creole-style remoulade you’ll find in the American South, more aggressively seasoned and spiked with ketchup for sweetness, acid and more umami.

Celery Root and Squash Remoulade

1 smallish celery root (about 2 pounds)

1 small kabocha or similar winter squash

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon kosher-style sea salt

3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon prepared horseradish*

1 tablespoon ketchup

1 tablespoon coarse-grain mustard

3 tablespoons mayonnaise

Crystal Hot Sauce, optional

*Or 2 tablespoons of finely grated fresh horseradish.

Peel the celery root; I like to use a knife for the gnarly root end, but a swivel peeler works fine for the relatively smoother upper part. Cut the squash in half, scrape out the seeds (roast them with a little olive oil and salt if you want), and cut off the hard stem portion. Cut both into pieces that fit through the feed tube of your food processor and blitz them with the grating disk.

Dissolve the salt and sugar in the vinegar, then mix in the olive oil and stir until well blended. Stir in the horseradish, ketchup, mustard and mayo. If desired, add a few shakes of Crystal or a similar vinegar-based hot sauce.

Toss the grated vegetables with the dressing and, if time allows, let it sit for an hour or so. Serve chilled or at room temperature.