Pumpkins are great for much more than carving! Pumpkins provide 53% of our vitamin A, 20% of our vitamin C, and 564 mg. of potassium. So if you never got around to carving that pumpkin, you might want to cook your pumpkin!
The name pumpkin originated from "pepon" – the Greek word for "large melon." When the colonists got to America, the Native Americans were using pumpkin seeds for food and medicine. American colonists sliced off pumpkin tips; removed seeds and filled the insides with milk, spices and honey. This was baked in hot ashes and is the origin of our pumpkin pie, although it is recorded that they also used pumpkins as an ingredient for the crust of pies, not the filling.
It is true that special varieties of pumpkins (called, most obviously "pie pumpkins") make the smoothest pumpkin pie, but even a jack-o-lantern type pumpkin makes a pretty good pie.
The largest pumpkin pie ever made was over five feet in diameter and weighed over 350 pounds. It used 80 pounds of cooked pumpkin, 36 pounds of sugar, 12 dozen eggs and took six hours to bake.
A few more trivia facts:
- Pumpkins are fruits, a type of squash that cucumbers, squashes and melons.
- Pumpkins are native to North America and have been domestically grown there for five thousand years.
- In 1584, after French explorer Jacques Cartier explored the Saint Lawrence region of North America, he reported finding "gros melons" (large melons). The name was translated into English as "pompions," which has since evolved into the modern "pumpkin."
- Pumpkins are low in calories, fat, and sodium and high in fiber. They are good sources of Vitamin A, Vitamin B, potassium, protein, and iron.
- Pumpkins range in size from less than a pound to over 1,100 pounds.
- The largest pumpkin ever grown was over 1140 pounds by a man in Ohio, in 2000.
- Pumpkins require a long hot growing season and loads of humus, manure and water.
- Pumpkin seeds can be roasted as a delicious snack.
- Pumpkins are used for feed for animals.
- Pumpkin flowers are edible.
- Pumpkins are members of the vine crops family called cucurbits. They are easy to grow!
- Pumpkins originated in Central America.
- Pumpkins were once recommended for removing freckles and curing snake bites.
- The Connecticut field variety is the traditional American pumpkin.
- Pumpkins are 90 percent water.
- Eighty percent of the pumpkin supply in the United States is available in October.
- In colonial times, Native Americans roasted long strips of pumpkin in an open fire.
- Native Americans flattened strips of pumpkins, dried them and made mats.
- Native Americans called pumpkins "isqoutm squash."
- Native Americans used pumpkin seeds for food and medicine.
- The first carved Halloween Jack O’Lanterns were made from turnips, not pumpkins
If you want to pick your own pumpkins, you should definitely check out Butler's Orchard just off I-270. I have been taking my children there for years and they have lots of different sized pumpkins! You will love it there.
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