pumpkin trivia
DID YOU KNOW?
The pumpkin is not only a fun icon of Halloween; it’s the key ingredient in that tasty Thanksgiving tradition, pumpkin pie.
While most pumpkins are orange, they also come in dark green, light green, white, red, gray, blue, and orange-yellow. 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 pumpkin as a vegetable, but it is actually a pumpkin 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 arriving in America, the colonists found a plethora of gourds already hollowed out, ready for use.
Native Americans called 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, in Paletine, Illinois. Choose your option.
Native to the Western Hemisphere, Central America specifically, pumpkins were originally used as a food crop, finding roots all over the world.
Pumpkins grow in present-day continental Europe, India, New Zealand, Australia, and Alaska.
Settlers from the New World sent pumpkin seeds to their English relatives, where the new seeds and fruits quickly became popular.
Turnips are generally carved differently than pumpkins; instead of carving the whole turnip, as is done with pumpkins, sections of the turnip are simply cut off to give it a shiny 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 make the fastest pumpkin carving on record.
Pumpkin flowers are edible.
There was a time when 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 pumpkin capital of the world. Nestlé’s pumpkin packing plant prepares 90% of all processed and canned pumpkins consumed in the United States.
Seeds related to the pumpkin plant dating from 7000 to 5500 BC were found in Mexico. c.
Speaking of an all-purpose plant! The seeds and flowers are not only delicious and healthy to eat, but in the early days of the Colony, pumpkins were not used to fill pies; rather, they were an important component used to bind pie crusts together.