Meet the Ingredient: Pumpkin Seeds and the Green Oil of Styria, A Short History

October 10, 2026

Pumpkin seed oil is one of the most distinctive oils in Europe: thick, very dark in the bottle and a deep green on the spoon. Its story runs from a cave in Mexico to farmhouse inventories in southern Austria, and it turns on one fortunate mutation in the seed.

Seeds came before pumpkins

Pumpkins and squashes belong to the genus Cucurbita, and most pumpkins are the species Cucurbita pepo. It was domesticated in the Americas: a domesticated C. pepo seed from Guilá Naquitz cave, in the Oaxaca valley of Mexico, has been dated directly to about 10,000 calendar years ago (8,990 radiocarbon years before present), and the site has yielded some of the earliest macrofossil evidence for squash and maize. Changes in fruit shape and colour show up in the cave deposits between roughly 8,990 and 7,000 radiocarbon years ago, which is the signature of people choosing the plants they preferred.

The seeds, not the flesh, probably came first. A review of oil pumpkin history in the Cucurbit Genetics Cooperative Report notes that seeds were eaten long before pumpkins were cultivated, and that selection for seed use favoured larger seeds, then larger fruit.

A word and a journey

The English word comes from the Greek pepon, "large melon", which passed through French pompon into English pumpion; colonists later turned it into "pumpkin". Columbus is known to have taken pumpkin seeds back to Europe, and by the sixteenth century pumpkins had spread through the continent. In Central Europe the mills that already pressed flax and rapeseed needed only slight modification to press pumpkin and sunflower seed.

The lucky mutation

Ordinary pumpkin seeds have a tough, woody husk. The Styrian oil pumpkin, Cucurbita pepo var. styriaca, does not. Its seed coat is thin and membranous: the four outer layers of cells are not thickened and woody, which is also why the kernels show through as olive to dark green. Pressing needs less heat and force, and the seeds can be eaten whole.

Exactly when the mutation appeared is unclear. Geneticists cite reports of the trait in European seed from the end of the nineteenth century, and Austria's agriculture ministry dates the moment Styrian farmers noticed the soft-shelled type and began growing it to 1880. A review of the oil describes it as a single nineteenth-century mutation, which makes this a surprisingly young member of an ancient genus.

Styria on paper

The documents are unusually specific. According to the ministry, the earliest record of pumpkin growing in Styria is an estate inventory at Gleinstätten in 1697 that lists pumpkin seed. Pressing is first mentioned in an inventory at Ettendorf in 1735, and the first written use of the word for pumpkin oil is around 1739. The product specification adds that the Pechmann mill has operated since 1774. Harvesting was mechanised from about 1970, a growers' association formed in 1978, and in 1996 the name Steirisches Kürbiskernöl was entered in the EU register of protected geographical indications (the specification was amended in 2023).

How the traditional green oil is made

The Styrian specification is detailed, and it shows how different this is from most oils.

The seeds are harvested from mid-September to mid-October, mostly by machine, after being sown in late April or early May. They are washed and dried to 6 to 8% water.
They are ground finely, mixed with water and a little salt, kneaded into a paste and warmed in a pan with a stirrer. The warming drives off water and develops the roasted flavour, and the intensity of the roasting decides how strong that flavour is.
The paste is pressed mechanically. The oil is not filtered or refined and nothing else is added, and it rests for at least a week so sediment can settle.
It takes about 2.5 to 3kg of seed for a litre of oil.
The result is thick and dark green, with red reflections when light shines through it, and it is bottled in dark glass because it is sensitive to light.

The protected name applies only to oil made this way, from seed grown in defined parts of Styria, southern Burgenland and Lower Austria, and pressed in Styria and southern Burgenland.

From flower to seed

Each pumpkin plant carries separate male and female flowers, which open at dawn and close before noon. Fruit only sets when insects carry pollen between them, and in North America the squash bee is the most important visitor. A good oil harvest therefore begins with a morning's work by bees.

Where our oil fits

Our Cold-Pressed Pumpkin Seed Oil is 100% organic and made from premium European pumpkin seeds, gently pressed at low temperatures. It is a cold-pressed oil rather than the traditional roasted Styrian style, so it is deep green and nutty but does not carry the protected name. Like the traditional oil, it is best used cold: poured over soups, risotto, roasted vegetables and even ice cream. Whole-seed pumpkin oil has a low burning point and is not suited to frying.