Why do so many Americans drive for miles each autumn to buy a
vegetable that they are unlikely to eat? While most people around
the world eat pumpkin throughout the year, North Americans reserve
it for holiday pies and other desserts that celebrate the harvest
season and the rural past. They decorate their houses with pumpkins
every autumn and welcome Halloween trick-or-treaters with
elaborately carved jack-o'-lanterns. Towns hold annual pumpkin
festivals featuring giant pumpkins and carving contests, even
though few have any historic ties to the crop. In this fascinating
cultural and natural history, Cindy Ott tells the story of the
pumpkin. Beginning with the myth of the first Thanksgiving, she
shows how Americans have used the pumpkin to fulfull their desire
to maintain connections to nature and to the family farm of lore,
and, ironically, how small farms and rural communities have been
revitalized in the process. And while the pumpkin has inspired
American myths and traditions, the pumpkin itself has changed
because of the ways people have perceived, valued, and used it.
Pumpkin is a smart and lively study of the deep meanings hidden in
common things and their power to make profound changes in the world
around us.
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