Autumn Delights: Spotlight On Pumpkins!

Pumpkin pie.

Pumpkin bread.

Pumpkin muffins.

Pumpkin soup.

Roasted pumpkin seeds.

And, of course, the grinning jack-o’-lantern sitting on the front porch.

Few foods are as closely connected with autumn as the pumpkin. As soon as the leaves begin changing and Halloween approaches, pumpkins start appearing everywhere — in kitchens, on porches, at farm stands and in front-yard displays.

But the familiar orange symbol of fall has a few surprises hiding beneath its thick skin.

For starters, that pumpkin you probably think of as a vegetable is actually a fruit.

At least botanically speaking.

One Very Large Family

Pumpkins belong to the cucurbit family, a huge group of plants found worldwide.

Some of their relatives are probably already familiar.

Cucumbers are part of the family.

So are melons, zucchini, and watermelons.

Many of these plants grow along the ground or climb, producing curling structures called tendrils. Tendrils help the plant grab nearby supports as it grows.

Anyone who has grown pumpkins in a backyard garden also knows something else about the plant.

It likes to travel.

Pumpkin vines can spread across a lot of space, sending out large leaves and producing flowers that eventually become the pumpkins we harvest in the fall.

And despite what happens after we bring them into the kitchen, those pumpkins aren’t technically vegetables.

So, Is a Pumpkin a Fruit or a Vegetable?

Ask a cook, and you may get one answer.

Ask a botanist, and you’ll get another.

In everyday cooking, people often treat pumpkins as vegetables because they use them in savory dishes.

Pumpkin can be roasted.

It can go into soups.

You can serve it as a side dish.

But botanically, a pumpkin is a fruit.

That’s because it develops from the plant’s flower and contains seeds.

The confusion isn’t unique to pumpkins. How we classify foods in the kitchen doesn’t always match how scientists classify the plants that produce them.

Pumpkins cross that culinary line particularly well.

They can become soup at dinner and pie for dessert.

They can go into breads, muffins, cookies, and other baked goods.

You can also clean the seeds inside, roast them, and eat them as a snack.

Call it a fruit.

In the kitchen, call it a vegetable.

Or, if you’d rather not choose sides, call it one of fall’s most useful foods.

What’s Behind That Orange Color?

The familiar orange color of many pumpkins comes from beta-carotene.

It’s the same pigment that gives carrots their bright color.

When we eat foods containing beta-carotene, the body can convert it into vitamin A.

But not every pumpkin looks like the classic round, bright-orange version used in Halloween decorations.

Pumpkins come in different sizes, shapes, and colors.

Still, the familiar orange pumpkin has become one of America’s most recognizable autumn symbols.

By October, they’re everywhere.

Some end up in pies.

Others never make it anywhere near the oven.

Instead, somebody gets out a knife.

Before Pumpkins, There Were Turnips

Carving a frightening face into a pumpkin is now a familiar Halloween tradition, but pumpkins weren’t always the star.

The custom has roots in Ireland, where people carved faces into turnips as part of end-of-summer traditions.

People believed the frightening faces kept unwanted spirits away.

When Irish immigrants came to North America in the 1800s, they found a much more convenient carving candidate.

The pumpkin.

Compared with a small, hard turnip, a large pumpkin offered plenty of room for creativity.

The substitution stuck.

Eventually, the jack-o’-lantern became one of Halloween’s most familiar sights.

Today, the carving can be as simple as two triangle eyes and a crooked smile—or as complex as a work of art.

Some people carve favorite characters.

Others create elaborate scenes.

And plenty of us still produce something that looks suspiciously like the same jack-o’-lantern we made in elementary school.

That’s part of the fun.

One Pumpkin, Plenty Of Possibilities

Pumpkins occupy an unusual place in autumn traditions because we don’t have to decide whether they’re food or decoration.

They can be both.

A pumpkin picked for cooking might become soup, bread, muffins, or pie.

Its seeds can become a snack.

Another pumpkin can sit beside the front door for weeks before becoming a jack-o’-lantern on Halloween night.

For children, choosing a pumpkin can become its own autumn tradition.

For gardeners, growing one can be an exercise in watching a surprisingly ambitious vine spread across the yard.

And for cooks, pumpkin season brings another round of recipes that disappear for most of the year and suddenly return when the weather cools.

That’s quite a career for one piece of produce.

Fruit or vegetable?

Dinner or dessert?

Food or decoration?

With pumpkins, the answer can be all of the above.

So whether you’re planning to bake yours, roast its seeds, turn it into soup, or carve the biggest grin you can manage, autumn is the pumpkin’s time to shine.

And if you’re carving one for Halloween, remember: somewhere in the history of that jack-o’-lantern is a little Irish turnip that had a much tougher job.