Pumpkin MythBusters: 10 Things Everyone Gets Wrong About Pumpkins
Pumpkins seem pretty straightforward. They're orange. They grow on vines. We carve them at Halloween, decorate our porches with them in the fall, and turn them into pie.
Except…pumpkins are surprisingly misunderstood.
From what's actually in pumpkin spice to whether pumpkins are vegetables, it's time to settle a few important fall debates.
Welcome to Pumpkin MythBusters: Blue Cottage Porch Edition.
Myth #1: Pumpkin spice contains pumpkin
BUSTED.
We might as well start with the big one. Pumpkin spice—or pumpkin pie spice—isn't pumpkin at all. It's a blend of spices traditionally used to flavor pumpkin pie, usually including cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves or allspice. So when something is labeled "pumpkin spice," what you're really tasting is the spice we associate with pumpkin pie
Your pumpkin spice candle? No pumpkin.
Pumpkin spice seasoning? No pumpkin.
That enormous pumpkin spice latte you're carrying around Houston when it's still 88 degrees outside?Well, depending on where you bought it, the drink itself might contain some actual pumpkin.
But the spice doesn't.
Myth #2: Pumpkins are vegetables
BUSTED — botanically, anyway.
Pumpkins are fruits.
Botanically, a fruit develops from the flower of a plant and contains seeds. Pumpkins check both boxes. More specifically, pumpkins belong to the Cucurbitaceae family along with squash, cucumbers, melons and gourds. In the kitchen, we tend to treat pumpkin like a vegetable.
Science disagrees.
Myth #3: All pumpkins are orange
Definitely busted.
Pumpkins can be orange, white, cream, yellow, green, blue-gray, pinkish, striped—and all sorts of combinations in between. Some are perfectly smooth. Others are deeply ribbed, flattened, covered in bumps or shaped like something that escaped from a fairy tale.
That's exactly why we love mixing specialty pumpkins into our Blue Cottage Porch displays. A porch filled with nothing but identical orange pumpkins is nice.
Add whites, Cinderellas, heirloom varieties and unusual textures? Now it gets interesting.
Myth #4: Once you carve a pumpkin, it should last for weeks
We wish.
An intact pumpkin can last quite a while under the right conditions because its rind protects the flesh inside.
The moment you carve it, you've broken that protective barrier.
Now moisture can escape and bacteria, fungi and insects have easy access to the flesh. Add warm weather and the deterioration speeds up. And here in Houston, October doesn't always get the memo that it's supposed to be fall.
If you're planning an elaborate jack-o'-lantern, don't carve it three weeks before Halloween and expect it to look fabulous on October 31.
Myth #5: Pumpkin seeds are just scraps from carving
Absolutely not.
If you're scooping the inside out of a pumpkin, don't automatically toss the seeds. Pumpkin seeds can be cleaned, seasoned and roasted for a fantastic fall snack. And depending on the pumpkin and how it was grown, seeds can also be saved for planting.
That's particularly meaningful around here because some of the pumpkins connected to Blue Cottage Porch are grown back in Nebraska by Adam's family and a nearby produce grower. Saving seeds from year to year can literally connect one fall harvest to the next.
That's a lot more interesting than tossing everything in the trash.
Myth #6: Pumpkins are just Halloween decorations
This might be our favorite myth to bust.
Pumpkins were around long before anyone thought about carving a spooky face into one. Pumpkins and squash have been cultivated in the Americas for thousands of years and were important food crops long before the modern traditions we associate with fall.
And today?
People grow them competitively.
They weigh them.
They launch them through the air.
They turn them into race cars.
They hollow giant ones out, climb inside and race them as boats.
Yes, really.
Consider the Pumpkin Myths Busted
So there you have it.
Pumpkin spice isn't pumpkin.
Pumpkins aren't vegetables.
They don't have to be orange.
They're warm-weather plants that became fall celebrities.
And somewhere out there, somebody is probably sitting inside a 700-pound pumpkin with a paddle.
At Blue Cottage Porch, we may not race our pumpkins—but we do think they're far more interesting than they get credit for. And fortunately for Houston porches, they also happen to look pretty spectacular.
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