Plant Snapshot: Pumpkins and Squashes
One of the reasons behind carving scary images into the vegetables is to deter spirits. The custom was later accepted in other Celtic parts of the country including Allantide (Kalan Gwav - the first day of winter) in Cornwall. The Irish immigrants took the custom with them to America but then started carving pumpkins instead of turnips.
By Will van Zyl Yes, I know! How original to write about pumpkins for Halloween month. But, did you know that the word pumpkin does not have any botanical meaning? It is only a common ambiguous term used to refer to a winter squash with a certain look. All pumpkins are squashes, but not all squashes are pumpkins.
Most parts of the squash are edible, the flesh can be used in sweet and savoury dishes, and the peel can also be eaten if thin enough. The flowers can be used raw in salads, battered and fried like pancakes or even stuffed. The seeds are very nutritious, toasted in a dry pan they will pop and make a tasty, crunchy snack or topping for a salad. The leaves of some varieties can even be used like spinach. The heaviest pumpkin ever recorded was grown by a Belgian in 2016 and weighed 2624.6 lb, about the same as a small car.
Squashes, together with rice, figs, bananas and potatoes, are some of the oldest domesticated vegetables. Carbon-dated fragments discovered in a cave in Mexico were found to be 10,000 years old. The squash is a diet staple of many different indigenous people of the Americas and has now become popular all over the world. Spain produced about a third of the world’s Halloween pumpkins in 2018. The carving of Jacko’-lanterns goes back to 19th century Ireland for the Samhain (pronounced Sa-win) festival. Turnips or mangel wurzel (a type of beet) were initially used, and it is said to be connected to the Irish legend of Stingy Jack.
Images: from left clockwise: Yellow and green ornamental gourd, Onion squash, Turk’s turban squash and Harlequin squash. 29
