I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion. -Henry David Thoreau
By Marketing Director, Amber Parrow
In my undergraduate studies, I took an American Food History class with professor and author Dr. Zachary Nowak. I learned much from this class as we focused on American food, but much of this history revealed a global impact and inter-continental movement of our food- that many of our favorite things to eat and recipes are just one culture’s variations of a worldwide mixing of ingredients.
In our class, we studied pumpkins, which has a fascinating story to tell about the impact culture, marketing, regionality, and stereotypes can have on our food supply. Pumpkins are a native species to North America, much like corn, squash, beans, cranberries, peppers, and tomatoes. However, the history of pumpkins will surprise you because there was a time when they were not looked on favorably as festive decorations or a staple holiday ingredient. In fact, pumpkins never really took off as a monetized commodity but were a sustenance crop. The people who grew and ate pumpkins were linked to the vegetable, so the pumpkin often was looked down upon.
One of our assignments was to review the book Pumpkin: The Curious History of an American Icon by Cindy Ott. This was based on her doctoral thesis on pumpkins and provides a fascinating look at food history and the impact regional politics, culture, and farming history can have on our food and supply chains. Here’s a summary of this fascinating book so you can understand the pumpkin phenomenon before you take a bite of pie this Thanksgiving!
Why Consider the Pumpkin’s History?
From her experience in selling pumpkins at a local stand with a friend, the author of Pumpkin, Cindy Ott, started wondering about the cultural preoccupation Americans had as a once-a-year decoration and dessert ingredient. “Why do Americans every Fall drive 20 miles to buy a vegetable they have no intention of eating” (Ott, 2013)? The pumpkin’s success, as Ott will show, is not in its life as a crop but in its ability to become an icon of America with its color and size, a representation of our farming heritage and rural communities, all through a nostalgic lens. Ott sums up the pumpkin phenomenon, “It is much of an idea as a plant type” (Ott, 2013).
A Native Crop to North America
When Europeans came to North America, one of the new foods they would’ve been introduced to was this indigenous crop. This was a staple in the diet of Native Americans. However, European settlers did not receive it well because of these ties, because they formed their ideas of pumpkin around those that consumed it- and their relationship with Native Americans was not optimal. They were fascinated with its aesthetic, however- big and orange!
Pumpkin Stereotypes
There were other interesting ideas about what pumpkins represented in their culture, including its symbol of reproduction and fertility, but also in the negative sense with connotations of “crude and unruly behavior and unchecked desire” (Ott, 2013).
A Sustenance Crop with Great Economic Capacity
The economy of the pumpkin can’t be denied! Other food commodities can’t compare to the growth ability of the pumpkin, producing hundreds of pounds of fruit from a single vine. But even with its hardiness and proliferation as a crop, it never took off as a commodity, but was instead a sustenance and livestock crop for years. Because of this, it was a crop to turn to when times were rough because of its yield and its hardiness. It was stigmatized as a poor person’s food. We look at the tale of Cinderella and her pumpkin carriage with endearment, but this was yet another tie to its association with poverty in Cinderella’s rags-to-riches tale.
Champions of the Pumpkin
Some did not take on these cultural stereotypes with vegetables and saw the value of the pumpkin to feed people and as a unique and delicious ingredient! So, there are appearances of pumpkins in early American cookbooks. We can also thank American women for transforming pumpkin into a desert form and salvaging its reputation to something much more positive!
The Pumpkin Shift
Farming went from self-sustaining to the push for commodity production after the Civil War. Although still not a money crop, the pumpkin had market appeal because of its size. The late nineteenth century was a shift of “the pumpkin’s meaning from its uses” (Ott, 2013). Pumpkins were a creative way for people to connect to the land with Jack O Lanterns. It became more of a symbol of rural life… but still struggling with its reputation. It also made appearances in children’s literature, adding to its positive image. This is the time when the pumpkin motif morphed into the Thanksgiving story, fall, American, and farm values.
Pumpkins started to be monetized in the early 20th century when people’s interest was returning to the nostalgia of the family farm. Agriculture was no longer profitable, and the Depression and Dust Bowl forced many to sell family farms. Pumpkin emerged as a crop for canning and decoration. It became the icon for agriculture and harvest, symbolizing the agrarian values of farm life, such as self-sufficiency, hard work, and good citizenry. As the nation became more urban, pumpkin pointed back to the agricultural heritage, that the heart of the country was in its farms.
The Pumpkin’s Redemption
People’s ideas of the pumpkin have changed greatly over time. It revitalized the reputation and economy of the small family farm. From its sorted past with what could be deemed as an unfair cultural representation, it has taken a complete 180. Now we see pumpkin as a necessary ritual of our holidays, if not a little bit of a status symbol– an activity to visit local farms, purchasing expensive pumpkin spice lattes, and then adorning our porches with the many sizes, shapes, colors, and varieties. Of course, the pumpkin’s long-standing place on our Thanksgiving tables has remained with many other savory and sweet variations!
Pumpkins Ties us to Seasonality and Agriculture.
The seasonality of our pumpkins is important as our produce supply chains are continually solving the issues of limited supply because of seasonality growing environment. There are generations that may not understand the limitations of mother nature because most of our produce is available year-round throughout the US. Pumpkins now step in as a connection to seasonality and agriculture.
Pumpkin too is also an important part of our renaissance of farming and bolstering the economy of smaller, local growers. But it’s also a move to exploring the ingredients that show up on our tables, looking to more produce and new and exciting ways to incorporate the taste and nutrition. Pumpkin is finally having its day and rightful place an a North American ingredient on our tables.
What We Learn from the Pumpkin
Looking at history through pumpkin helps us connect to our history as a nation in all its great and not-so-great moments. It helps us understand how culture, politics, regionality, and race play into our food supply revealing that we don’t value our food solely on its merits as a crop, its nutritional value, or even its versatility as an ingredient. But the story of the pumpkin is one of keeping our connection to the nostalgia and heritage we have in our rural communities and as agrarians – the farmers and foods native to North America that impacted our global food supply and have fed millions.
References
Ott, C. (2013). Pumpkin: The Curious History of an American Icon. University of Washington Press.
