pumpkin curiosities

DID YOU KNOW?

The pumpkin isn’t just a fun Halloween icon; it’s the key ingredient in that tasty Thanksgiving tradition, pumpkin pie.

While most pumpkins are orange in color, they also come in dark green, light green, white, red, gray, blue, and yellow-orange. The remarkably high levels of lutein, alpha-carotene, and beta-carotene are responsible for the orange coloration and also for transforming vitamin A in the body.

Many people think of squash as a vegetable, but it is actually a squash fruit related to cucumbers, gherkins, and melons. Pumpkins are 90% water and if you fill a pumpkin with milk and then bake it, you will have a pudding.

In Ireland, the original Jack O’ Lanterns were made from hollowed-out turnips, a hearty fruit readily available in the British Isles. However, upon arrival in America, the colonists found a plethora of gourds already hollowed out, ready to use.

The Native Americans called the gourds “isquotersquash.”

The weight of the world’s largest pumpkin has been variously listed as 1,061 pounds, 1,140 pounds, 1,385 pounds, and 1,502 pounds, at Paletine, Illinois. Choose your option.

Native to the Western Hemisphere, Central America specifically, gourds were originally used as a food crop, finding roots throughout the world.

Gourds grow in present-day continental Europe, India, New Zealand, Australia, and Alaska.

Settlers from the New World shipped pumpkin seeds to their English relatives, where the new seeds and fruit quickly became popular.

Turnips are generally carved differently than pumpkins; Instead of carving the entire turnip, as is done with pumpkins, sections of the turnip are simply cut away to give it a glossy appearance.

In addition to being a delicious snack, pumpkin seeds are packed with zinc, iron, potassium, magnesium, and essential fatty acids.

During the Halloween season, about 99% of the pumpkins grown for home consumption go to the sole purpose of carving Jack O’Lanterns.

Jerry Ayers of Baltimore, Maryland needed the world record time of just 37 seconds to do the fastest pumpkin carving on record.

Pumpkin flowers are edible.

At one time, gourds were used as a home remedy to cure snake bites and remove freckles.

Pumpkins can be grown in Alaska but not in Antarctica, the only continent hostile to pumpkin growing.

Morton, Illinois is the self-proclaimed squash capital of the world. Nestlé’s pumpkin packing plant prepares 90% of all processed and canned pumpkin consumed in the United States.

Seeds related to the squash plant were found in Mexico dating from 7000 to 5500 BC. c.

Talk about an all-purpose plant! The seeds and flowers are not only delicious and healthy to eat, but in the early days of the Colony, gourds were not used for filling pies; rather, they were a major component used to bind pie crusts together.