Carving Into Our Favorite Squash
The culinary, medicinal, and cultural significance of the pumpkin
This article is part of the Dish-Covery series, where we uncover the stories behind your beloved dishes and pull back the curtain to look at culinary traditions that shape our modern palates.
Celebrating the Autumn Harvest
The autumnal crispness in the air and the dwindling hours of twilight have me thinking of all manners of warming foods - mugs of hot apple cider scented with a dash of freshly grated nutmeg, thick slices of chewy sourdough bread with crackly crust, and deep bowls of soup made from freshly harvested autumn vegetables.
October is full of autumn’s bounty, including Halloween’s (un)official mascot - the pumpkin. The entire month is “National Pumpkin Month,” with additional days celebrating the power of the pumpkin in our culinary lives:
October 1: Pumpkin Spice Day
October 12: Pumpkin Pie Day
October 21: Pumpkin Cheesecake Day
October 26: National Pumpkin Day
Across the country, the humble pumpkin is a grand reason for food festivals and community celebrations from Half Moon Bay, California to Keene, New Hampshire.
The Great Northern American Pumpkin
The vernacular term pumpkin tends to be used for a variety of winter squashes in the genus Cucurbita. The common Cucurbita pepo with its iconic orange, thick flesh; hollow bell; and thick, flat seeds is what we’ve come to associate with the jack-o-lantern traditions. In Washington Irving’s classic tale, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman flings a flaming Cucurbita pepo at the hapless Ichabod Crane. One wonders if it could have been put to better use.
The C. pepo pumpkin is native to northeastern Mexico and the southern United States and is one of the oldest domesticated plants, dating as far back as 7,000 to 5,500 BC. Like domesticated corn, they are grown not only for food for both humans and livestock, but also for aesthetic and recreational purposes, like carved or painted decorations for Halloween.
As one of the most popular crops in the United States with more than 1.5 billion pounds produced in 2017 from top pumpkin-producing states including Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and California. Forty percent of the overall pumpkin crop for all uses originates in the state of Illinois, and the majority of that comes from five counties in the central part of the state.
The largest single producer of pumpkins is Illinois farmer Sarah Frey whose Frey Farms sells around five million pumpkins annually, predominantly for use as lanterns.
The Gourmet Pumpkin
Ask anyone about the dish they associate with pumpkin, and the answer is most likely to be “Pumpkin Pie!” but pumpkins have great culinary versatility and some beneficial medicinal properties.
As a food, pumpkin is a nutritional powerhouse with beneficial levels of beta-carotene and vitamins A & C. Although the flesh is dense and filling, the vegetable is very low in carbohydrates, making it a great source of food energy.
Early folk medicine applications for pumpkins include treating urinary disorders like bladder irritation. It is also purported to help expel intestinal parasites. Sounds like an excellent time for a family Thanksgiving dinner!
Revisit our inaugural Pie episode for more lore about America’s essential Thanksgiving dessert and let us know in the comments how YOU like your pumpkin pie!
EP 2: Pie Crazy Labels, Cockney Rhyming Slang, and Greek Melons
Listen now (26 mins) | In honor of Thanksgiving, we talk pie, from Harry Potter's favorite tart to recipes in American Cookery by Amelia Simmons, an American orphan. Kim shares another one of her macabre food facts and Leigh waxes poetic about her favorite Thanksgiving pie. Well, maybe not poetic, but she does share some interesting melon facts.
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Made my first pumpkin pie with oven-roasted pumpkin. No can in site!. Visited O'Hallorans in Apple Hill, near Placerville, California and purchased a Sugar Pie pumpkin. It made the best pie ever! So easy and delicious. Of course we topped it off with fresh whipped cream. Will make it again for the Thanksgiving feast or Tuesday night dessert!
I like my pumpkin pie with Chantilly cream.