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A pumpkin is a cultivar of a squash plant, most commonly of Cucurbita pepo, that is round, with smooth, slightly ribbed skin, and deep yellow to orange coloration. The thick shell contains the seeds and pulp. Some exceptionally large cultivars of squash with similar appearance have also been derived from Cucurbita maxima.

Specific cultivars of winter squash derived from other species, including C. argyrosperma, and C. moschata, are also sometimes called "pumpkin".

In New Zealand and Australian English, the term pumpkin generally refers to the broader category called winter squash elsewhere.

Native to North America, pumpkins are widely grown for commercial use and are used both in food and recreation. Pumpkin pie, for instance, is a traditional part of Thanksgiving meals in Canada and the United States, although commercially canned pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie fillings are usually made from different kinds of winter squash than the pumpkins frequently carved as jack-o'-lanterns for decoration around Halloween.

Description

Pumpkins, like other squash, are thought to have originated in North America. The oldest evidence, pumpkin-related seeds dating between 7000 and 5500 BC, was found in Mexico.

Since some squash share the same botanical classifications as pumpkins, the names are frequently used interchangeably. One often-used botanical classification relies on the characteristics of the stems: pumpkin stems are more rigid, prickly, and angular (with an approximate five-degree angle) than squash stems, which are generally softer, more rounded, and more flared where joined to the fruit. Pumpkin fruits are a type of botanical berry known as a pepo.

Traditional C. pepo pumpkins generally weigh between 3 and 8 kilograms (6 and 18 lb), though the largest cultivars (of the species C. maxima) regularly reach weights of over 34 kg (75 lb).

The color of pumpkins derives from orange carotenoid pigments, including beta-cryptoxanthin, alpha and beta carotene, all of which are provitamin A compounds converted to vitamin A in the body.

Etymology

The word pumpkin originates from the word pepon (πέπων), which is Greek for "large melon", something round and large. The French adapted this word to pompon, which the British changed to pumpion and to the later American colonists became known as pumpkin.

Terminology

The term pumpkin has no agreed upon botanical or scientific meaning, and is used interchangeably with "squash" and "winter squash" in some areas. In many areas, including North America and the United Kingdom, pumpkin traditionally refers to only certain round, orange varieties of winter squash, predominantly derived from Cucurbita pepo, while in Australian English, pumpkin can refer to winter squash of any appearance.

Taxonomy

All pumpkins are winter squash: mature fruit of certain species in the genus Cucurbita. Characteristics commonly used to define "pumpkin" include smooth and slightly ribbed skin, and deep yellow to orange color. Circa 2005, white pumpkins had become increasingly popular in the United States. Other colors, including dark green (as with some oilseed pumpkins), also exist.

Cultivation

Pumpkins are grown all around the world for a variety of reasons ranging from agricultural purposes (such as animal feed) to commercial and ornamental sales. Of the seven continents, only Antarctica is unable to produce pumpkins; the biggest international producers of pumpkins include the United States, Canada, Mexico, India, and China. The traditional American pumpkin used for jack-o-lanterns is the Connecticut Field variety.

In the United States

As one of the most popular crops in the United States, 680,000,000 kilograms (1.5 billion pounds) of pumpkins are produced each year. The top pumpkin-producing states include Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and California.

According to the Illinois Department of Agriculture, 95% of the U.S. crop intended for processing is grown in Illinois. Nestlé, operating under the brand name Libby's, produces 85% of the processed pumpkin in the United States, at their plant in Morton, Illinois. In the fall of 2009, rain in Illinois devastated the Nestlé crop, resulting in a shortage affecting the entire country during the Thanksgiving holiday season.

Pumpkins are a warm-weather crop that is usually planted in early July. The specific conditions necessary for growing pumpkins require that soil temperatures 8 centimetres (3 in) deep are at least 15.5 °C (60 °F) and soil that holds water well. Pumpkin crops may suffer if there is a lack of water or because of cold temperatures (in this case, below 18 °C or 65 °F; frost can be detrimental), and sandy soil with poor water retention or poorly drained soils that become waterlogged after heavy rain. Pumpkins are, however, rather hardy, and even if many leaves and portions of the vine are removed or damaged, the plant can very quickly re-grow secondary vines to replace what was removed.

Pumpkins produce both a male and female flower; honeybees play a significant role in fertilization. Pumpkins have historically been pollinated by the native squash bee Peponapis pruinosa, but this bee has declined, probably at least in part to pesticide sensitivity, and today most commercial plantings are pollinated by honeybees. One hive per acre (4,000 m per hive, or 5 hives per 2 hectares) is recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. If there are inadequate bees for pollination, gardeners often have to hand pollinate. Inadequately pollinated pumpkins usually start growing but abort before full development.

Giant pumpkins

"Giant pumpkins" are a large squash (within the group of common squash Cucurbita maxima) that can exceed 1 tonne in weight. The variety arose from the large squash of South America through the efforts of botanical societies and enthusiast farmers.

Such germplasm is commercially provocative, and in 1986 the United States extended protection for the giant squash.

See #Pumpkin festivals and competitions below.

Nutrition

In a 100-gram amount, raw pumpkin provides 110 kilojoules (26 kilocalories) of food energy and is an excellent source (20% or more the Daily Value, DV) of provitamin A beta-carotene and vitamin A (53% DV) (table). Vitamin C is present in moderate content (11% DV), but no other nutrients are in significant amounts (less than 10% DV, table). Pumpkin is 92% water, 6.5% carbohydrate, 0.1% fat and 1% protein (table).

Uses

Cooking

Pumpkins are very versatile in their uses for cooking. Most parts of the pumpkin are edible, including the fleshy shell, the seeds, the leaves, and even the flowers. In the United States and Canada, pumpkin is a popular Halloween and Thanksgiving staple. Pumpkin purée is sometimes prepared and frozen for later use.

When ripe, the pumpkin can be boiled, steamed, or roasted. In its native North America, it is a very important, traditional part of the autumn harvest, eaten mashed and making its way into soups and purees. Often, it is made into pie, various kinds of which are a traditional staple of the Canadian and American Thanksgiving holidays. In Canada, Mexico, the United States, Europe and China, the seeds are often roasted and eaten as a snack.

Pumpkins that are still small and green may be eaten in the same way as squash or zucchini. In the Middle East, pumpkin is used for sweet dishes; a well-known sweet delicacy is called halawa yaqtin. In South Asian countries such as India, pumpkin is cooked with butter, sugar, and spices in a dish called kadu ka halwa. Pumpkin is used to make sambar in Udupi cuisine. In Guangxi province, China, the leaves of the pumpkin plant are consumed as a cooked vegetable or in soups. In Australia and New Zealand, pumpkin is often roasted in conjunction with other vegetables. In Japan, small pumpkins are served in savory dishes, including tempura. In Myanmar, pumpkins are used in both cooking and desserts (candied). The seeds are a popular sunflower seed substitute. In Thailand, small pumpkins are steamed with custard inside and served as a dessert. In Vietnam, pumpkins are commonly cooked in soups with pork or shrimp. In Italy, it can be used with cheeses as a savory stuffing for ravioli. Also, pumpkin can be used to flavor both alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages.

In the southwestern United States and Mexico, pumpkin and squash flowers are a popular and widely available food item. They may be used to garnish dishes, and they may be dredged in a batter then fried in oil. Pumpkin leaves are a popular vegetable in the Western and central regions of Kenya; they are called seveve, and are an ingredient of mukimo, respectively, whereas the pumpkin itself is usually boiled or steamed. The seeds are popular with children who roast them on a pan before eating them. Pumpkin leaves are also eaten in Zambia, where they are called chibwabwa and are boiled and cooked with groundnut paste as a side dish.

Other than the traditionally defined pumpkin, commercially canned "pumpkin" puree and pumpkin pie fillings may contain other winter squashes, such as butternut squash.

Leaves

Pumpkin leaves, usually of C. moschata varieties, are eaten as vegetable in Korean cuisine.

Seeds

Pumpkin seeds, also known as pepitas, are edible and nutrient-rich. They are about 1.5 cm (0.5 in) long, flat, asymmetrically oval, light green in color and usually covered by a white husk, although some pumpkin varieties produce seeds without them. Pumpkin seeds are a popular snack that can be found hulled or semi-hulled at most grocery stores. Per ounce serving, pumpkin seeds are a good source of protein, magnesium, copper and zinc.

Pumpkin seed oil

Pumpkin seed oil, a thick oil pressed from roasted pumpkin seeds, appears red or green in color depending on the oil layer thickness, container properties and hue shift of the observer's vision. When used for cooking or as a salad dressing, pumpkin seed oil is generally mixed with other oils because of its robust flavor. Used in cooking in central and eastern Europe, it is considered a delicacy in traditional local cuisines such as for pumpkin soup, potato salad or even vanilla ice cream. Pumpkin seed oil contains fatty acids, such as oleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid.

Other uses

Canned pumpkin is often recommended by veterinarians as a dietary supplement for dogs and cats that are experiencing certain digestive ailments such as constipation, diarrhea, or hairballs. The high fiber content helps to aid proper digestion.

Raw pumpkin can be fed to poultry, as a supplement to regular feed, during the winter to help maintain egg production, which usually drops off during the cold months.

Pumpkins have been used as folk medicine by Native Americans to treat intestinal worms and urinary ailments, and this Native American remedy was adopted by American doctors in the early nineteenth century as an anthelmintic for the expulsion of worms. In Germany and southeastern Europe, seeds of C. pepo were also used as folk remedies to treat irritable bladder and benign prostatic hyperplasia. In China, C. moschata seeds were also used in traditional Chinese medicine for the treatment of the parasitic disease schistosomiasis and for the expulsion of tape worms. Chinese studies have found that a combination of pumpkin seed and areca nut extracts was effective in the expulsion of Taenia spp. tapeworms in over 89% of cases.

Culture

Halloween

Pumpkins are commonly carved into decorative lanterns called jack-o'-lanterns for the Halloween season in North America. Throughout Britain and Ireland, there is a long tradition of carving lanterns from vegetables, particularly the turnip, mangelwurzel, or swede. The practice of carving pumpkins for Halloween originated from an Irish myth about a man named "Stingy Jack". The turnip has traditionally been used in Ireland and Scotland at Halloween, but immigrants to North America used the native pumpkin, which are both readily available and much larger – making them easier to carve than turnips. Not until 1837, does jack-o'-lantern appear as a term for a carved vegetable lantern, and the carved pumpkin lantern association with Halloween is recorded in 1866.

In the United States, the carved pumpkin was first associated with the harvest season in general, long before it became an emblem of Halloween. In 1900, an article on Thanksgiving entertaining recommended a lit jack-o'-lantern as part of the festivities that encourage kids and families to join together to make their own jack-o'-lanterns.

Association of pumpkins with harvest time and pumpkin pie at Canadian and American Thanksgiving reinforce its iconic role. Starbucks turned this association into marketing with its pumpkin spice latte, introduced in 2003. This has led to a notable trend in pumpkin and spice flavored food products in North America. This is despite the fact that North Americans rarely buy whole pumpkins to eat other than when carving jack-o'-lanterns.

Chunking

Pumpkin chunking is a competitive activity in which teams build various mechanical devices designed to throw a pumpkin as far as possible. Catapults, trebuchets, ballistas and air cannons are the most common mechanisms. Some pumpkin chunkers breed and grow special varieties of pumpkin under specialized conditions to improve the pumpkin's chances of surviving a throw.

Pumpkin festivals and competitions

"Giant pumpkins" are orange variants of the giant squash, Cucurbita maxima. Growers of these "pumpkins" often compete to see whose pumpkins are the most massive. Festivals are often dedicated to the pumpkin and these competitions.

The record for the world's heaviest pumpkin, 1,190.5 kg (2,624.6 lb), was established in Belgium in 2016.

In the United States, the town of Half Moon Bay, California, holds an annual Art and Pumpkin Festival, including the World Champion Pumpkin Weigh-Off.

Folklore and fiction

There is a strong connection in folklore and popular culture between pumpkins and the supernatural. Famous examples include the following:

Folklore

• A commonplace motif of people being turned into pumpkins by witches.
• The jack-o-lantern custom discussed above, which connects to Halloween lore about warding off demons.
• In the folk tale Cinderella, the fairy godmother turns a pumpkin into a carriage, but at midnight it reverts to a pumpkin.

Fiction

• Linus' belief in the Great Pumpkin in Charles M. Schulz's comic strip Peanuts.
• Juice from a pumpkin has magical effects in the short story "Pumpkin Juice" by R. L. Stine.
• In the Harry Potter novels, pumpkin juice, a favorite drink of the students of Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is a recurring element.
• The pumpkin hurled by the "Headless Horseman" in Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
• Jack Pumpkinhead, a character in the Oz books of L. Frank Baum, with a pumpkin for a head on a wooden body, brought to life in the second book.
• In Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, the main character, Jack Skellington, is "the Pumpkin King."
• Precious Ramotswe, the fictional detective from Botswana in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series of novels by Scottish author Alexander McCall Smith, often cooks and eats pumpkin.
• In a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Feathertop from 1852, a witch turns a scarecrow with a "pumpkinhead" into a man.
• The Spider-Man villains the Green Goblin and Hobgoblin use small, handheld "pumpkin bombs" as a signature weapon.

See also

• List of culinary fruits
• List of pumpkin varieties grown in the United States

References

1. ^ Ferriol, María; Picó, Belén (2007). "3". Handbook of Plant Breeding: Vegetables I. New York: Springer. p. 317. ISBN 978-0-387-72291-7. The common terms "pumpkin", "squash", "gourd", "cushaw", "ayote", "zapallo", "calabaza", etc. are often applied indiscriminately to different cultivated species of the New World genus Cucurbita L. (Cucurbitaceae): C. pepo L., C.  maxima Duchesne, C. moschata Duchesne, C. argyrosperma C. Huber and C. ficifolia Bouché.
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52. Daily News (Kingston, Ontario), November 1, 1866:

    The old time custom of keeping up Hallowe'en was not forgotten last night by the youngsters of the city. They had their maskings and their merry-makings, and perambulated the streets after dark in a way was no doubt amusing to themselves. There was a great sacrifice of pumpkins from which to make transparent heads and face, lighted up by the unfailing two inches of tallow candle.

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Further reading

• Ott, Cindy (2012). Pumpkin: The Curious History of an American Icon. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-99195-X.

External links

• Media related to Pumpkins at Wikimedia Commons
• Template:Dmoz

v t e Cucurbita
List of gourds and squashes
Species	C. argyrosperma C. californica C. cordata C. cylindrata C. digitata C. ecuadorensis C. ficifolia C. foetidissima C. galeottii C. gracilior C. lundelliana C. martinezii C. maxima C. moschata C. okeechobeensis C. palmata C. pedatifolia C. pepo C. radicans C. scabridifolia
Cultivars	Summer squashes Aehobak Crookneck squash Gem squash Kamokamo Pattypan squash Straightneck squash Tromboncino Zucchini Winter squashes and pumpkins Acorn squash Big Max Butternut squash Calabaza Connecticut field pumpkin Cushaw squash Delicata squash Dickinson pumpkin Honeynut squash Kabocha Marrow Red kuri squash Spaghetti squash Turban squash
Related topics	Raw materials Buffalo gourd oil Pumpkin seed oil Squash blossoms Dishes List of squash and pumpkin dishes Bundevara Hitlerszalonna Kabak tatlısı Mashed pumpkin Pepita Pumpkin pie Squash soup Pumpkin soup Soup joumou Stuffed squash Activities Giant pumpkin Jack-o'-lantern Pumpkin chucking Pumpkin queen
Category: Cucurbita

• Squashes and pumpkins
• Crops originating from Pre-Columbian North America
• Crops originating from the Americas
• Edible nuts and seeds
• Fruit vegetables
• Halloween food
• Staple foods
• Thanksgiving food