My relationship to pumpkin is complex.
I'm the type of person says that it's fine if we don't have turkey for Thanksgiving, but we absolutely must have pumpkin pie.
At the same time, I would never buy pumpkin spice shampoo. That's just crazy talk.
7 Facts About Pumpkins I Learned In October 2017
Orange, bulbous, inhuman creatures have certainly dominated the news this month. Here are a few new things I've learned about them:
- Pumpkin is not really pumpkin.
You know that can of pumpkin you buy at the store every autumn, the one that says "100% pumpkin"? Yeah, not so much. It's actually squash! Apparently squash makes better pies than real pumpkin, which can be rather bland. I first learned this on NPR's Marketplace podcast ("Your pumpkin pie is a lie") and then confirmed it by reading Bravetart by Stella Parks, a book I highly recommend. - The Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks has dairy in it!
I found out this one the hard way. If you're trying to avoid milk, ordering your pumpkin spice latte with soy, almond, or coconut milk isn't enough. Real milk gives me migraines, so I did a little digging after my second (and last!) pumpkin spice latte. Yep, sure enough I found: Is Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Latte Dairy Free? - Some people really don't like the smell of pumpkin.
According to an article in The Washington Post, a school in Baltimore was evacuated due to a bad smell that made it difficult for some students and teachers to breathe. The Hazmat team was brought in and they determined that the cause was a pumpkin spice air freshener. - One reporter went pumpkin spice crazy.
One reporter wrote about buying every pumpkin spice item she could during one week. My favorite quote concerned her pumpkin spice dog biscuits: "My dogs loved them! They also love eating garbage straight out of the can." - The pumpkin capital of the world is Morton, Illinois.
I learned that the Libby plant in Morton cans 80% of the world's pumpkins in this article by Good Housekeeping featuring 15 pumpkin facts. (Note: The city website claims over 85%.) I always love learning about small towns that have a singular point of pride. The even have an annual pumpkin festival that attracts 70,000 people. (The town population is around 16,000.) - Pumpkin beer is not a hipster invention.
I always thought pumpkin beer was new (and frankly, weird), but it actually dates back to colonial times, according this "Pumpkin Beer History" article. - Pumpkin carving has gone way, way beyond triangle cut-outs for facial features.
See some of the amazing pumpkins that are carved as part of Pumpkinferno in Canada. I am astounded by the pumpkin dragon. Wow!
Shown here: My handmade Pumpkin Earrings are made with hand stamped copper and niobium (hypoallergenic) ear wires. The handmade I [Heart] Pumpkin Spice Keychain is made with copper and finished with a strong stainless steel key ring.