There are lots of cooks out there who actually know what they are doing. I pretty much taught myself to cook, out of necessity. I haven’t a clue most of the time, but I do love to eat. 
Dried pumpkin is packed with carbohydrates and is a good source of fiber, Vitamin A, iron and magnesium. Use it to thicken and add flavor to soups and stews.
Indigenous people preserved pumpkins and squash by drying and smoking them. Sliced into rings, or cut into long strips which can be woven into mats, pumpkin can be hung on racks inside the lodge to dehydrate in the hot, dry smoke above the fire. Kept dry, they remain tasty and nutritious all winter and through the spring.
To make pumpkin rings, I first peeled the pumpkins. This isn’t absolutely necessary, but they will dry faster and be easier to use later if you remove the hard rind.
After removing the top and bottom of the pumpkin I used a spoon to scrape the stringy pulp and seeds from the meat of the pumpkin.
Rinse and save the seeds for roasting.
Once the pumpkin has been hollowed out and cleaned, I cut it into rings, a couple inches thick.
You can use a food dehydrator to dry them, but I made a rack in my tipi by driving four forked sticks into the ground and resting horizontal sticks in the forks to form a square just above head height. The rings can be slipped over these sticks to hang suspended above the fire.
Keep an eye on them so they don’t mold. This shouldn’t be a problem if it is warm and dry out. A smokey fire will hasten drying and the smoke will inhibit mold and add a pleasant flavor.
When they are dry enough to snap, they are done. Vacuum seal them or wrap them in paper and store them in a cool, dry place until needed.
I made pumpkin rings last year and was pleased with the results, so most of this year’s harvest became rings as well. I am curious about pumpkin mats. The advantage is mats are more compact and easier to store in quantity. I spiral cut a few pumpkins into long strips so I can try it out.
I hung them in the smoke for several days, until they had shrunk some and were partially dry. Then I stretched them out on a cutting board and pounded them with a wooden mallet. This expressed some moisture and made them a more uniform thickness for weaving.
I wove the pounded strips of pumpkin into a crude mat. It is back in the smoke, hanging from the drying rack in the tipi. I am looking forward to seeing how this works.
