16 Little Known Pumpkin Facts

What do pumpkins have to do with freckles and snakebites? What state grows the most pumpkins annually? Here are the answers!

Pumpkin spice lattes may have dominated every autumnal season in recent memory, but actual pumpkin has been on earth for a whopping 5,000 years. There’s so much more to the fruit (yep, it’s a fruit!) than its honorable contributions to our favorite Starbucks drink, Thanksgiving desserts and the most haunted holiday of the year. While you’re prepping for Halloween by carving a few pumpkins, think about all the possible uses for this superfood and consider the roots of fall’s most famous flavor. Here are all the most fascinating facts about pumpkins we could find:

16 Little Known Pumpkin Facts

1. The word ‘pumpkin’ comes from the Greek word, pepon, which means a “large melon.”
2. Pumpkins originated in Central America.
3. Pumpkins are actually a fruit. Many people think it should be our national fruit.
4. Pumpkin is also a squash; a member of Curcurbita family.
5. The yellow-orange flowers that bloom on the pumpkin vine are edible.
6. Pumpkin seeds taste great roasted and contain medicinal properties.
7. Native Americans grew and ate pumpkins and their seeds long before the Pilgrims reached this continent. Pilgrims learned how to grow and prepare pumpkins from the Native Americans.
8. Pumpkin was most likely served at the first Thanksgiving feast celebrated by the Pilgrims and the Native Americans in 1621.
9. The earliest pumpkin pie made in America was quite different than the pumpkin pie we enjoy today. Pilgrims and early settlers made pumpkin pie by hollowing out a pumpkin, filling the shell with milk, honey and spices and baking it.
10. Early settlers dried pumpkins shells, cut it into strips and wove it into mats.
11. Pumpkin has been prepared in a variety of ways from soups to stews to desserts since the immigration of the first European settlers.
12. The ‘Pumpkin Capital of the World’ is Morton, Illinois. Home of Libby’s pumpkin industry.
13. The state of Illinois grows the most pumpkins. It harvests about 12,300 acres of pumpkins annually.
14. The latest U.S. record (2019) for the largest pumpkin ever grown weighed in at 2,517.5 pounds by Karl Haist of Clarence Center, New York.
15. Pumpkins were once considered a remedy for freckles and snakebites.
16. Natural medicine practitioners have proven that consuming pumpkin seeds reduces the risk of prostate disorders in men.

Author: Deborah Tukua

Source: (farmersalmanac.com)

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