The world’s creepiest vegetable, bar none, is the blue Hubbard squash. But that shouldn’t stop you from cracking it open and giving it a try in place of your old fall standbys.

It’s the size of a baby, teardrop-shaped, covered with warts, and colored a zombie-like blue-gray. If you happened upon one, unsuspecting, while strolling through the vegetable patch, you’d scream and run. We all know about giant, warty, blue pods. Aliens hatch out of them in horror movies.

Hubbard squash is a winter squash. This last a classification that has nothing to do with botany, but is all about squash use in the kitchen. Unlike summer squashes, which have delicate, edible shells and seeds (think zucchini) winter squashes have tough, inedible shells