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Welcome to Photo of the Month
Every month WCC brings you images from far away lands.
So sit back and let us carry you away. Featured photo - November 2008
Pondering Pumpkins | |||||||||||||
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Pondering Pumpkins
"For pottage, and puddings, and custards and pies,
Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies; We have pumpkin at morning, and pumpkin at noon, If it were not for pumpkin, we should be undoon" - excerpt of ballad, "Our Forefathers' Song,"
taken down from the lips of a ninety-four year old lady in 1767, featured in "The Pilgrim Fathers" by W. H. Bartlett, London, 1852. Pumpkins are native to the New World and related to squashes, cucumbers, and cantaloupes. Their ancestry can be traced back 9,000 years to Mexico. The name pumpkin originated with the Greek word for “large melon,” or “pepon,” meaning “cooked by the sun.” The French nasalized “pepon” and it became “pompon.” Then the English changed “pompon” to “pumpion,” which can be found in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor. New World colonists changed “pumpion” into “pumpkin.”
Native Americans referred to the golden fruit of the vine as "isquotm squash". Long before any European settlers arrived, they would cut strips of pumpkin, roast them on an open fire and store as a food staple to get through the long winters. As centuries passed they learned many ways of enjoying the inner meat of the delicious and nutritious winter squash: baked, boiled, roasted, fried, parched, or dried. Native Americans also used pumpkin seeds for medicine.
While "pumpkin pie" is typically associated with the Pilgrims, in actuality their first pies were not pies at all. The colonists of 1639 would scoop out a pumpkin, fill it with milk, spices and syrup, and then cook it for hours in hot ashes to make pudding. Pumpkin soon became a focal point for the Pilgrims' harvest festivities (Thanksgiving), so much so that one early celebration was actually postponed until the arrival of a supply ship carrying molasses — a vital ingredient for baking the much-loved pies.
So do you like your pumpkin pie with pecans, caramel, or maple syrup? Check out a few pumpkin pie recipes here. | ||||||||||||||
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About the artist
Franklin Viola
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