recipe from an unknown tradition

I can't remember where I found this. I can't remember what ethnicity it is. All I know is that I've been making it for Pre-Thanksgiving for the last five years or so. It is served in three layers. It can be made quite separately for transport. It sounds unlikely, and yet, I can't make it too often because I end up eating All Of It. It is definitely a Dish for Festive Occasions on account of huge quantities of oil and sugar and meat.

Mysterious Pumpkin Dish:

Base - pumpkins

~2 lbs of pumpkin, peels and seeds
removed, cut into pieces
generous amt. olive oil, rubbed over pumpkin pieces
1/2 - 1 cup sugar

place pieces curving up in baking pan, they can be crowded but should be a single layer, drizzle olive oil over, rub to make sure every piece is completely coated, then sprinkle pile sugar onto the pieces. It should look like a massive blizzard, with drifts of sugar over every piece, and dropping off the sides.

bake at 300 F until the pieces are essentially candied - translucent and easily pierced. This is a minimum of an hour, sometimes 2. The sugar will have dissolved long ago, and there may be liquid in the pan. Add that to the meat part, if you'd like.

Meat layer

~1.5 lbs hamburger
1 med onion
3 - 5 cloves garlic
2 - 3 Tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp cumin seed
cilantro, basil and oregano - handful of each fresh or generous pinch of each dried

Toast the cumin seed in a large frying pan with no oil until it smells fabulous. Add a tiny amount of oil, and the onion coarsely chopped. Let the onion go translucent and even brown on the edges slightly, add the garlic and within moments, the hamburger. The hamburger should cook til lightly browned and crumbly (If it looks like your standard pasta sauce beginning, that is fine) then add tomato paste and herbs. It should look lumpy and thick, not too runny, definitely not dry. Add water if necessary.

You can let the sauce cool, and reheat it for serving later.

Topping

1 cup greek yogurt, or 1.5 cups of regular yogurt drained through a (clean) coffee filter to make it thick
5 - 10 cloves of garlic
kosher salt, or other tasty salt

peel and mash the garlic, stir it into the yogurt, add a pinch of salt to taste

Presentation:

It goes in layers - a piece of pumpkin, sauce on top, yogurt drizzled over that.

I was thinking about what you might use for a vegetarian version of the middle layer. I think beans would be an unfortunate texture combo, but maybe lentils could work, or tempeh. Or you could just leave out the middle layer and have garlicky yogurt on sweetened pumpkin, which is pretty stunning on its own.

If anyone knows where this comes from, or what its name is, I'd love to be enlightened...