photo credit: Phil Romans

When I think of pumpkins I think of a beautiful pumpkin patch with tons and tons of bright orange pumpkins laying all around. Those beauful orange fruit grow from the vines that normally run along the patch floor. When carved they can make funny faces or scary images. Or what is better then a hot baked pumpkin pie. But have you ever wondered what is a pumpkin?

Although the pumpkin is a strange looking fruit it is not the strangest fruit out there. The pumpkin is a type of gourd squash.

When you think of a gourd you think of a fruit that you would hallow out and then you may fill it with beads so that it could be used as a noisemaker. Gourds are normally a yellowish green, straight green, or orange in color.

The pumpkin is one of the larger gourds known and this gourd can be used for so much more then pretty on your table or a noise maker. You can add a candle in the pumpkin during Halloween but you could also fill it with soup and place it on the dinner table.

There are alot of different ways you can cooking a pumpkin. You could slice it up and fry it much like you would if you were frying suchini. Although the pumpkin is larger and much rounder then other squash you can still do many of the same things. A pumpkin also keeps for a long time. Once a pumpkin is cut off the vine you can store it in a dark cool place (make sure it is kept up off the ground) and it will normally keep for a few months.

If you look at the stem of the pumpkin you will notice that it resembles that of the stem of a yellow squash or Zucchini. But you will also notice that it is not near as flexible and is much more prickly. You should not pick up a pumpkin by it’s stem because that could damage the pumpkin.

Do you know the meaning of the word pumpkin? Pumpkin means “large melon”. You can either eat the pumpkin raw or you can cook and eat the pumpkin. You will receive much more nutrition if you eat the pumpkin raw then if you cooked it. Alot of people probley don’t think of the pumpkin as a fruit, but one criterion for considering something a fruit is it has seeds. And since a pumpkin is completely full of seeds that makes it a fruit.

And you can do a couple things with those seeds. You can roast the seeds and eat them that way or you can use them as a garnishment on other dishes. But Did you know that not all pumpkins are orange? Yes there are some that are albino. I thought that they used some kind of dye to make pumpkins white but I found out different when I began researching pumpkins.

You may also see some purple, green or even read pumpkins. Could you image decorating your porch with fall colored pumpkins? But until we start seeing more of these colored pumpkins check out Easy Pumpkin Painting.