Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's that podcast host who is afraid of
Speaker 1: everyone being too scared and anxious right around Halloween and
Speaker 1: an election. So I have a really really great new episode.
Speaker 1: It's all about desertrology. It's up this week and it's
Speaker 1: about mortuary makeup. But if you, for some reason are
Speaker 1: like m I can't go there and I can't do
Speaker 1: skin books either, word, I hear you. And here is
Speaker 1: an encore presentation of last year's q Curbatology episode about
Speaker 1: pumpkins with author and Copeland. This is an ologite favorite.
Speaker 1: Y'all love her, you love her pumpkin wisdom. It is
Speaker 1: nothing but just like a ball pit full of hugs
Speaker 1: and good feelings. So just dive in, enjoy, get cozy,
Speaker 1: get a pumpkin, name it, hug it, do whatever you
Speaker 1: need to do. But yes, happy Halloween, and if you're
Speaker 1: in North America, please do vote. Okay, awesome on with
Speaker 1: the show and Copeland. Oh hey, it's your friend who's
Speaker 1: at the mall and text you photos of genes that
Speaker 1: cannot possibly be the new thing. Please tell me Highwaysted
Speaker 1: with no pockets isn't a thing? Please? Ali worked back
Speaker 1: with another episode of Oologies. We're just leaning into this season,
Speaker 1: crunchy leaves, wood, smoke scarves, glowy little lights in the darkness,
Speaker 1: this episode Pumpkins. If Pumpkins were a person, I'd be
Speaker 1: down to be the roommate. They seem chill, they seem friendly,
Speaker 1: they seem down for a good time, like they would
Speaker 1: come and clutch with a pep talk when you need it.
Speaker 1: Pumpkins seem like totally not assholes. But before we get
Speaker 1: into it, let me thank all the folks at patreon
Speaker 1: dot com slash ologies for supporting the podcast. Thanks to
Speaker 1: everyone wearing ologies merch from ologiesmerch dot com. Thanks to
Speaker 1: all the folks of course who are just destroying that
Speaker 1: subscribe button and rating the show and keeping it up
Speaker 1: in the charts. And of course you brave souls who
Speaker 1: submit a review because you know I care and I
Speaker 1: pick out a new one each week, such as for example,
Speaker 1: Alchemist nineteen eighty seven twenty thirteen says dad Ward is
Speaker 1: like your long last best friend from kindergarten, you know,
Speaker 1: the one you would sneak off to the playground with
Speaker 1: and turnover rocks by the pond. I have rebelled against
Speaker 1: the podcast culture since it's very inception but it's just
Speaker 1: not possible to not enjoy this podcast. Alchemist, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Let's get into it. Let's turn over the
Speaker 1: rock that is cue crepetology. Okay, what in the David
Speaker 1: s pumpkins is this word David pumpkins? I mean, are
Speaker 1: we supposed to know who that is? I know you
Speaker 1: have questions. Okay, I looked it up. Cu creb patology
Speaker 1: comes from the Latin for gord, and yes, cure patology
Speaker 1: looks like cucumbers because they're related. We're going to get
Speaker 1: into that later. But also I'd like to note that
Speaker 1: the word pumpkin comes from the French for pump pump,
Speaker 1: which came in a winding viny way from the Greek peppo,
Speaker 1: which means to be cooked by the sun. Genus and
Speaker 1: species of most pumpkins cuc pepo a gourd that's been
Speaker 1: cooked in the sun. So I was looking for a
Speaker 1: pumpkin expert, or someone who studies pumpkins, or a pumpkin scholar,
Speaker 1: but not just the science of pumpkins, but also the
Speaker 1: emotions and the folklore and the history. And I came
Speaker 1: across a book entitled Pumpkin, Pumpkin Folklore, History, planting hints
Speaker 1: and good eating by someone who loves pumpkins so much
Speaker 1: she studied them intensely in wortal whole book about them.
Speaker 1: So I tippy tapped around on the internet. I found
Speaker 1: this ologist's info. I cold called her. I just left
Speaker 1: a voicemail at six pm on a Sunday, like a freak.
Speaker 1: I was driving on my way back from the Mohave Desert.
Speaker 1: She called me back like an hour later, and I
Speaker 1: just I happened to be driving through her tiny town
Speaker 1: of Yukaipa, so I pulled over. I chatted with her
Speaker 1: for about fifteen minutes before I had the nerve to say, Hey,
Speaker 1: I know I'm a stranger and it's like eight pm
Speaker 1: on a Sunday night, but can I come over? Can
Speaker 1: I talk to you about pumpkins? And she said she was
Speaker 1: a night owl anyway, she gave me the address. I
Speaker 1: headed over. I'm approaching the porch. Here we go. Hello,
Speaker 1: And how could I be so lucky? So she was
Speaker 1: preceded by a few shuabas and came out in comfy
Speaker 1: Sunday clothes, her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail.
Speaker 2: Right, you made you lovely, lady?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: So are you Thanks for letting me come over, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm kind of really close to you.
Speaker 1: Is that okay?
Speaker 2: That's okay, We're really free for Marina. Oh, you're great.
Speaker 2: I'm an old old chime. Shit, now you're down, mommy's
Speaker 2: doing an interview. Okay.
Speaker 1: So if you hear any little pup whimpers or the
Speaker 1: soft gurgling of a nearby fish tank, just consider it
Speaker 1: part of the immersive pumpkin experience, which was lovely. We
Speaker 1: chatted about what is a pumpkin? How long have we
Speaker 1: been carving them up and cooking them down? How many
Speaker 1: varieties are there, what else are they used for? How
Speaker 1: do you pick out a good one, what are the
Speaker 1: biggest myths and the biggest pumpkins? How memories can follow
Speaker 1: you for decades, and the fascinating history that led this
Speaker 1: pumpkin stud here to embark on her research. So let
Speaker 1: a little candle enjoy the flickering and cozy wisdom of
Speaker 1: cucrevitology and Copeland.
Speaker 2: I'm a senior. I'm going to be seventy eight November
Speaker 2: twenty second, which falls on Thanksgiving every so many years,
Speaker 2: and that's how I one of the ways I come
Speaker 2: to love pumpkins.
Speaker 1: You must have had a pumpkin pie for your birthday.
Speaker 2: Oh, I always had pumpkin pie, pumpkin cake, pumpkin soup,
Speaker 2: pumpkin nip, you name it.
Speaker 1: And did you get sick of having a.
Speaker 2: Pumpkin Oh no, no, no, no, no, never, never never no.
Speaker 2: And it was encouraging to me because I sort of
Speaker 2: adopted pumpkins is my own thing. So no, I never
Speaker 2: got tired of pumpkins.
Speaker 1: And now, were you always really curious? Did you grow
Speaker 1: up curious as a kid? Oh yeah, Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: used to.
Speaker 2: I used to lie in the grass and look through
Speaker 2: the grass and look at insects and try to imagine
Speaker 2: what their lives would be like living down there, and
Speaker 2: you know, what their world was like.
Speaker 1: So when we chatted on the phone and described herself
Speaker 1: as quote an unconventional senior, woohoo. And when a person
Speaker 1: uses wooho as a form of punctuation, you have to
Speaker 1: make it. You turn and you have to beg to
Speaker 1: come over to meet this person and hear about their
Speaker 1: life and how pumpkins fit into the past and the present.
Speaker 2: Kind of a hippie, I'm very much a hippie, never
Speaker 2: into the drug scene and all that. But I love
Speaker 2: the music. I love the art. I love creativity. I
Speaker 2: love people speaking up about things they believe in.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about your background. What did
Speaker 1: you study?
Speaker 2: Okay, I started out in nursing. When I finally got
Speaker 2: to go to college, I think I was close to
Speaker 2: thirty and so I started out in nursing and I
Speaker 2: went through that about two years. And after two years,
Speaker 2: I said, gee, I wonder when we're ever going to
Speaker 2: get to go to a hospital. This is a four
Speaker 2: year program. I sort of need to get a sense
Speaker 2: of what it's like to be a nurse. And so
Speaker 2: I said, what could I be. Well, my husband at
Speaker 2: the time said, you know, I'm going to take you
Speaker 2: to this place in Los Angeles. It's called the Johnson
Speaker 2: O'Connor Research Foundation, and these people test you based on
Speaker 2: your innate abilities, not on questions that they ask you.
Speaker 2: So they did this long testing process for days and days,
Speaker 2: and then they came up with this idea that he said,
Speaker 2: you are perfect for archaeology. Oh, I said, archaeology. I said, well,
Speaker 2: you know, that does sound really interesting. So I got
Speaker 2: a degree in archaeology and I actually worked in the field.
Speaker 2: I went out into Arizona, New Mexico, and also I
Speaker 2: went down into Mexico so.
Speaker 1: As an archaeologist was researching the pottery of indigenous people
Speaker 1: of the Southwest and Mexico, looking at some pre Columbian
Speaker 1: methods of firing pottery and cooking. And she said she
Speaker 1: loved the work.
Speaker 2: So I loved the study. It was kind of perfect
Speaker 2: for me. Unfortunately, archaeologists have this thing that's known as
Speaker 2: the archaeological diseases. So I got paratyphoid, and then I
Speaker 2: got valley fever, and by then I said, you know,
Speaker 2: I may not make it monymore years if I don't
Speaker 2: switch field.
Speaker 1: And also worked as a graphic artist doing type setting,
Speaker 1: and she started a small nonprofit for people dealing with
Speaker 1: physical and developmental challenges. She said she was deeply affected
Speaker 1: by her brother's experience in Vietnam after he returned with
Speaker 1: a brain injury and PTSD. This woman's heart is a
Speaker 1: cucurbado maxima, which is a species of giant pumpkin, which
Speaker 1: we'll talk about later.
Speaker 2: And I love people. I love relating to other people
Speaker 2: of all kinds and helping them in different ways. I
Speaker 2: taught illiterate adults. I did a lot of things in
Speaker 2: my life, So then how did I come to write
Speaker 2: this book?
Speaker 1: Solid question. So Anne's husband at the time was an
Speaker 1: anthropologist who was super encouraging.
Speaker 2: And he said, you know, you're you're good at writing.
Speaker 2: You like to write. Why don't you become you know,
Speaker 2: why don't you write a book? He said, why don't
Speaker 2: you write a book about I don't know? Pumpkins? And
Speaker 2: we had been to Virginia when we first got together,
Speaker 2: and I had never been there before. It was raining,
Speaker 2: it was in the winter or fall. It was muddy everywhere,
Speaker 2: and we were driving through the hills and I just
Speaker 2: suddenly said, pumpkins, We're coming to pumpkins. And he said, no,
Speaker 2: don't be silly, there's no and he didn't even finish
Speaker 2: his sentence. We come over the top of the hill
Speaker 2: and they're on the right side down at the bottom
Speaker 2: of the hill and right in the mud puddle. And
Speaker 2: the biggest mud puddle is this pumpkin stand. So I
Speaker 2: had to go and get my pumpkin right then. And
Speaker 2: I had to you know, you don't just go get
Speaker 2: a pumpkin. You have to evaluate it right. You have
Speaker 2: to make sure it has the qualities, and the qualities
Speaker 2: change every year, because you know, they're magical. They don't
Speaker 2: just stay the same. So I went and picked this
Speaker 2: really really big pumpkin because I decided I had to
Speaker 2: have a big, big pumpkin. Now, mind you, we had
Speaker 2: to fly back from Virginia to California, so I wouldn't
Speaker 2: let go of my pumpkin. So I took it on
Speaker 2: the plane with me. And it was so cute because normally,
Speaker 2: you know, people are kind of like they're looking at you,
Speaker 2: Oh gee, what are they up to? Could they be
Speaker 2: a terrorist? Who knows? You know, but even the pilot
Speaker 2: everybody was smiling and they were like, oh yeah, take
Speaker 2: it in, and so so kind. That kind of started.
Speaker 1: And had a few friends who were cornert chefs with
Speaker 1: this huge library of vintage books, and she would leave
Speaker 1: through them just mesmerized.
Speaker 2: And they had this remarkable collection of old, old, old cookbooks,
Speaker 2: I mean from the eighteen hundreds, and in fact, every
Speaker 2: recipe was cooked on a wood burning stove in an
Speaker 2: iron pot, and there were no measurements. So Luisa and
Speaker 2: I had fun trying to figure out how much do
Speaker 2: you think? Oh, I don't know, what do you think?
Speaker 2: And like I said, I'm unconventional in a sense. Number one,
Speaker 2: I don't make a recipe twice the same way. And
Speaker 2: number two, I questioned things that are called for to
Speaker 2: put in and I addressed this in my book because
Speaker 2: I don't want anybody to go she forgot to tell
Speaker 2: me to put in a quarter teaspoon of salt, and
Speaker 2: my cooking is ruined, you know. And so I I
Speaker 2: told people, you know what, salt is a very personal issue.
Speaker 2: And I did a little bit on the history of salt,
Speaker 2: and I said, you know, salt is your choice, but
Speaker 2: it's not an essential. You're not going to ruin your
Speaker 2: recipe if you don't put salt in it at all.
Speaker 2: And I said, why should I tell you a quarter
Speaker 2: of a teaspoon when maybe you want to put a
Speaker 2: whole teaspoon or even a tablespoon. It's up to you.
Speaker 2: You want to kill yourself, really have had it, you know,
Speaker 2: have fun. So that was that was how I got
Speaker 2: into so Luisa and I would try out all these recipes,
Speaker 2: and like we made we made pumpkin soap, and it
Speaker 2: was one of our funniest experiences because neither of us
Speaker 2: had made soap before and they're calling for like mutton
Speaker 2: fat and things like that that we didn't really have.
Speaker 2: So we sort of had to figure out, well, what
Speaker 2: would be like mutton fat. I'm like, could we go
Speaker 2: get the donkey down the street or about a gooser?
Speaker 2: And what should we use? And we just kept experimenting
Speaker 2: and it took us a long time to get it
Speaker 2: to where we actually were able to make it, but
Speaker 2: we did do it. So that was that was a
Speaker 2: heap of fun.
Speaker 1: And now getting back to how to pick a pumpkin?
Speaker 1: Uh huh, how do you pick a pumpkin? What are
Speaker 1: we looking for?
Speaker 2: It's going to be different every single time you go.
Speaker 2: It's going to be different. The color's going to be different,
Speaker 2: the shape of the pumpkin's going to be different, the
Speaker 2: size of it, whether it has a stem at the
Speaker 2: top that's long, or whether it doesn't even have a stem,
Speaker 2: And it's going to change every year according to what
Speaker 2: your you know, your person. It's i mean, it's magic
Speaker 2: every year. You'll know it when you see it, and
Speaker 2: it may take a long time to figure it out,
Speaker 2: but that's half the fun of getting one.
Speaker 1: So for a decorative pumpkin, use intuition. You can summon
Speaker 1: your spidey sense, tap into some witches magic, and just
Speaker 1: get magnetized to the right way. Now, if you're going
Speaker 1: to eat it, the darker, the green stem and the
Speaker 1: orange skin mean it's ready to be picked, ready to
Speaker 1: be purchased, and you can hold it up to your
Speaker 1: ear and you can thump it. And the louder that hollow,
Speaker 1: echoey sound, the better the pumpkin. In side note, if
Speaker 1: you ever need to lovingly threaten someone, say for venmoing you,
Speaker 1: for enchiladas when you said they wear your treat, or
Speaker 1: not texting you the second they get home safe, you
Speaker 1: can always say that you'll thump them on the pumpkin.
Speaker 1: That's been a word family threat for years and it
Speaker 1: translates to I love you, how dare you? And now,
Speaker 1: what about some varieties of pumpkins?
Speaker 2: Oh, there are a lot, a lot, a lot of
Speaker 2: pumpkin varieties. Now, a pumpkin is not a typical fruit.
Speaker 2: It's also not a vegetable. Oh it's not. No, it's
Speaker 2: not a vegetable. It's a fruit. Not well, sort of
Speaker 2: a pumpkin, believe it or not. Is a berry? Oh?
Speaker 2: What it's a berry? Why it's a berry? Because it
Speaker 2: said I'm going to be a berry, and it's very true.
Speaker 1: It's a freakin berry, y'all. It's a frickin berry, and
Speaker 1: I looked it up. And so are cucumbers. And avocados
Speaker 1: are a berry. Bananas are a berry. Eggplants are a berry.
Speaker 1: These are berries. They are fleshy seeded fruits. They're formed
Speaker 1: from a single flower containing one ovary boom berries. Anne says,
Speaker 1: the biggest fum flam she's here to debunk is that
Speaker 1: pumpkins are not a vegetable, and in her book she
Speaker 1: calls the pumpkin a botanical platypus, but refer to them
Speaker 1: as a vegetable. She might thump you on the berry.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, you have a lot of fun with pumpkins,
Speaker 2: because there's a lot of really different things about pumpkins.
Speaker 2: They come in different sizes, shapes. They were grown in
Speaker 2: Mexico way way back, even before the Incas and so forth.
Speaker 2: They were grown in China way way back. So I
Speaker 2: don't know what the Chinese name all right to say,
Speaker 2: for those of you who speak fluent Chinese, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: I don't mean to disappoint you.
Speaker 1: And what are some of your favorite varieties of pumpkin.
Speaker 2: I like, there's a pumpkin that is green, that has stripes,
Speaker 2: and sometimes it has red and green, and they're very small.
Speaker 2: I think they're called kabashi.
Speaker 1: Okay. These little pumpkins are Japanese, and if you google
Speaker 1: image search kobacha in Japan you will find all manner
Speaker 1: of pumpkins. But to English speakers, kobacha needs a short
Speaker 1: squat squash that you've probably had in tempura, and you
Speaker 1: either save it as the last piece you eat as
Speaker 1: a treat, or you eat it first because life is short,
Speaker 1: and someone at the table may say, ooh, can I
Speaker 1: have some of your tempura, and you want the pumpkin
Speaker 1: one for yourself, you gotta eat it fast. Ps Australians
Speaker 1: call all kinds of squash pumpkin. It's calabasa and Spanish
Speaker 1: and candied in Mexico for Day the Dead Festivity, and
Speaker 1: the British used to call them pumpions. Now the smooth
Speaker 1: doorstep pumpkins where used in America are Connecticut field pumpkins,
Speaker 1: and the smaller ones that we make in at pies
Speaker 1: are sweet sugar pies, and there are Jarendale blue pumpkins
Speaker 1: Casper white pumpkins. The pumpy ones are called peanut. There's
Speaker 1: Long Island cheese pumpkins because they look like a cheese wheel.
Speaker 1: There are others called white ghost, warty goblins, and baby boo. Essentially,
Speaker 1: just come up with a new pumpkin and give it
Speaker 1: your cat's weirdest nickname. You're good to go. But how
Speaker 1: do you make a new pumpkin?
Speaker 2: If you want to cross pollinate pumpkins, you can't just
Speaker 2: put the seeds together and expect them to grow a right.
Speaker 2: You have to literally hand pollinate them. You have to
Speaker 2: pretend to be a bee.
Speaker 1: I'm a bumblebee.
Speaker 2: Go out there and buzz around and take your little
Speaker 2: cue tip and hand pollinate them. And then sometimes they
Speaker 2: will grow for you, and sometimes they won't. It depends
Speaker 2: on the level of the type of pumpkin that it is.
Speaker 2: So back in the day when I started working on
Speaker 2: the Pumpkin Cookbook, it was pretty incredible because I'd go
Speaker 2: to the grocery store. They would have gotten the Halloween
Speaker 2: pumpkins out, but they'd have a lot of pumpkins left still,
Speaker 2: and I'd tell them I was writing the book, and
Speaker 2: they'd give me a whole I mean, I had people
Speaker 2: give me a whole basketful, a whole grocery basketful of
Speaker 2: pumpkins for free because they wanted to get rid of
Speaker 2: them anyway, and they said, oh, wow, you know you're
Speaker 2: going to write, okay, good, here take them. During pioneer
Speaker 2: days because they didn't aliways have a flour available, and
Speaker 2: they also did noise have food for the cattle, so
Speaker 2: those were used in particularly back East to feed the
Speaker 2: cattle and also to get flours. So they would they
Speaker 2: would slice the pumpkins and get the seeds out of them,
Speaker 2: and then they would hang up on the ceilings to dry,
Speaker 2: and then they would grind them into flour. And they
Speaker 2: actually made pumpkin flour. I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Ye tell me a little bit more about the history
Speaker 1: of pumpkins. So South America, right, and guys, And then
Speaker 1: at what point did they start growing them in North
Speaker 1: America and Europe? I mean, they're pretty much grown on
Speaker 1: every continent, right.
Speaker 2: Well, they figured that the American Indians were growing them
Speaker 2: for a while. They just may not have looked like
Speaker 2: the pumpkins we have today. They might have looked more
Speaker 2: like a squash. For example. They might have been smaller.
Speaker 2: They believed that the seeds were very healthy for you,
Speaker 2: which they are. So they believe that they would take
Speaker 2: away like parasites and things like that. So they would
Speaker 2: eat the seeds and dry them and eat them.
Speaker 1: Okay, Note how ancient are pumpkins? Did they come from aliens?
Speaker 1: Probably not. Scientists have found seeds that are over seven
Speaker 1: thousand years old. They were genated in Central America. Is smaller,
Speaker 1: more bitter, little gourds, and indigenous populations all over the
Speaker 1: continent have for centuries use pumpkins in stews.
Speaker 2: Dried them.
Speaker 1: They use them in medicine, squash blossoms which also side
Speaker 1: note amazing fried, thank you very much. Those were used
Speaker 1: for skin injuries, and from eighteen thirty six to the
Speaker 1: mid nineteen hundreds pumpkin seeds were recognized as a remedy
Speaker 1: for intestinal infections, and more recent research has been on
Speaker 1: the l tryptofan in pepita seeds helping with symptoms of depression,
Speaker 1: which part of that is probably just sitting there cracking
Speaker 1: them with your teeth is so dang dang fun. Also,
Speaker 1: according to Kaiser Permanente's website, there have been pumpkin seed
Speaker 1: medical trials showing promise in reducing kidney stone risk and
Speaker 1: helping with a parasite that comes from snails. So your
Speaker 1: glowing porch orb contains a little botanical wizardry. You mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier that pumpkins are magical. Oh, absolutely, we'll talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about how you feel about pumpkin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's not just the pumpkin itself, it's
Speaker 2: the whole season that it ushers in. It's all the
Speaker 2: good things that we know and love, getting together with friends,
Speaker 2: changing our personality via a costume.
Speaker 1: Halloween quick reminder, is the eve of all hollows day
Speaker 1: to honor saints, and the tradition of dressing up comes
Speaker 1: in part to embody the costume that you're wearing and
Speaker 1: partly to scare off the demons that are just all around,
Speaker 1: just chilling, waiting to cross the boundary and to death
Speaker 1: the next day. It's kind of like right before some
Speaker 1: holy day, we need to just wild out and get stupid,
Speaker 1: like Marti Gras before Lent. You got New Year's Eve,
Speaker 1: before all of our January first resolutions take effect. And
Speaker 1: then there's always those soggy eyed squads of pre wedding
Speaker 1: bachelor and bachelorettes just vaping through Las Vegas casinos weeks
Speaker 1: before a wedding. Now, some researchers have found a link
Speaker 1: between higher caloric intake in the colder months, attributing it
Speaker 1: to old kind of hardwiring for storing up on fat
Speaker 1: before a fast. So Halloween is the time to dress
Speaker 1: up like someone who can kick more ass than you
Speaker 1: can in order to ward off evil, and also to
Speaker 1: eat all the candy you can because death looms close
Speaker 1: and the fruit trees will be bear in the winter.
Speaker 1: It makes sense.
Speaker 2: There were all these kind of magical things when I
Speaker 2: was growing up. You know, we did bobbing for apples,
Speaker 2: we did popcorn balls, we did you know today they
Speaker 2: just go out and buy a bag of candy, throw
Speaker 2: it in a bowl and give it to the kids. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't like that then. It was. It was
Speaker 2: a lot. There was a lot more to the activity itself,
Speaker 2: and so to me, pumpkins became magical. You know when
Speaker 2: something changes your memories in life and makes it something
Speaker 2: you'll always remember. I mean, here, I am almost seventy
Speaker 2: eight and I remember every single minute of that. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was a good time.
Speaker 1: What was it like for you to research your book
Speaker 1: when you really decided I'm going to write a book
Speaker 1: about pumpkins.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love researching. It just fulfilled my need to
Speaker 2: do something that I love to do.
Speaker 1: And so when you were researching for the book, how
Speaker 1: did you structure it? I know that you go over
Speaker 1: some recipes, and you go over history and folklore. What
Speaker 1: was your favorite part of researching?
Speaker 2: Actually, it was the history and the folklore to start
Speaker 2: out with. The recipes came along later, but I actually
Speaker 2: started looking into the history and the folklore first, and
Speaker 2: then I got into kind of like growing hints, and
Speaker 2: then I kind of got into the cooking part.
Speaker 1: Of it, and says that after she wrote the first
Speaker 1: edition of Pumpkins Pumpkins in nineteen eighty six, she had
Speaker 1: to send off query letters to publishers That's how you
Speaker 1: did it those days, hoping that one would write back
Speaker 1: and request the manuscript. And someone suggested that she keep
Speaker 1: a chart of the publishing houses responses and if she
Speaker 1: got rejected, just keep a record of why. Now, before
Speaker 1: her book finally made it to print now in its
Speaker 1: third edition, she was rejected six hundred times, and somehow
Speaker 1: she's still sunny.
Speaker 2: About it, what a great learning experience that was. Because
Speaker 2: of all those six hundred, not one of them was
Speaker 2: because of my writing or my style. They all liked it.
Speaker 2: In those days, there weren't a lot of specialized cookbooks.
Speaker 2: That was one issue. And the other issue was that
Speaker 2: they considered it seasonal, which course we all know it's not.
Speaker 2: You can buy pumpkins all year round in one form
Speaker 2: or another, and people do, so you know, it was
Speaker 2: a good It was a good learning experience. So I
Speaker 2: always tell anybody who's writing a book today, don't get
Speaker 2: discouraged because number one, it's not in all likelihood it's
Speaker 2: not your writing. It's either the wrong kind of book,
Speaker 2: or it's a book that, even though you may have
Speaker 2: written it well, there's something about it that did not sell.
Speaker 2: You've picked the wrong title, or you've picked the wrong art,
Speaker 2: or there's some aspect of it that doesn't draw people.
Speaker 2: You've got to have the right ingredients. And it took
Speaker 2: me three editions to get this really good cover that
Speaker 2: looks good, to take all the art out of the book,
Speaker 2: you know, and get down to basics. So it's been
Speaker 2: through good revisions and I'm glad I had this ability
Speaker 2: to go through this process really like going to college,
Speaker 2: you know, and it's free. Yeah, free.
Speaker 1: And now what is some of the folklore surrounding pumpkins,
Speaker 1: Because I'm thinking like people stepping into pumpkins's carriages. We
Speaker 1: got Igabod crane out there, we got all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 2: Oh, there are there's myths that involve pumpkins from other
Speaker 2: lands that where they actually believe that humanity came from
Speaker 2: I'm a pumpkin.
Speaker 1: Ps. I did look this up. In a two thousand
Speaker 1: and one article from the Journal Economic Botany catalogs several
Speaker 1: creation myths from different Asian cultures, most of which involve
Speaker 1: people surviving a great flood by floating in a hollow
Speaker 1: pumpkin or the birthing of a pumpkin. Youch that's cut
Speaker 1: into many pieces to form people. Can you imagine going
Speaker 1: through labor and they're like, ps, your baby is huge.
Speaker 1: It's a pumpkin. Also, we're going to dice it up
Speaker 1: so you now have like a thousand babies. No hard pass.
Speaker 1: But historians think that the pumpkin plant didn't even make
Speaker 1: Da Asia until post Colombian times. But this folklore has
Speaker 1: been passed down through enough oral and written tradition that
Speaker 1: it's stuck. And here in America, there are old stories
Speaker 1: from Southern communities and African American communities about riding pumpkin
Speaker 1: vines into new lands since they grow so fast, just
Speaker 1: like hop a pumpkin vine like a bullet train, and
Speaker 1: also stories about convincing Europeans pumpkins or donkey eggs. And
Speaker 1: Anne includes some of these Southern United States folklore tales
Speaker 1: verbatim in her book and says they're of special interest
Speaker 1: to her because the historical stories are in African American
Speaker 1: vernacular English. And you can see the International Phonology episode
Speaker 1: with the phenomenal Doctor Nicole Holliday for more on that.
Speaker 1: And Ann's husband is part of African American and so
Speaker 1: those stories have ties to his family history. So she
Speaker 1: loves the folklore, which is folk is such a hard
Speaker 1: way to say. Three times, it's say folklore. Can you say, well,
Speaker 1: I've messed this up, so anyway, folklore.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of variety in the folklore, and
Speaker 2: it depends where it comes from.
Speaker 1: What are some of your favorite stories?
Speaker 2: I like the one there's one about Chinese princess and
Speaker 2: the emperor wants to marry her, but she is in
Speaker 2: love with another man. She agrees to marry him, but
Speaker 2: she wants to go inside this pumpkin for a while.
Speaker 2: She jumps basically off a cliff into the river and
Speaker 2: pushes the pumpkin gets off. So that's one of the
Speaker 2: ones I like because it's kind of strange. It's kind
Speaker 2: of really different from what you expect.
Speaker 1: Okay, this one is about a family who has a
Speaker 1: pumpkin in their yard and they decide to cut it
Speaker 1: in half, and surprise, there's a human baby inside and
Speaker 1: they're like, cool, free baby, and the baby grows up
Speaker 1: to be smoking hot. The emperor is like, you're my
Speaker 1: hot wife now, and she's like, oh, gross, no, I
Speaker 1: already have a husband. Her real husband dies of a
Speaker 1: broken heart because the emperor is like, I'm here to
Speaker 1: steal your girl, and so she tricks the emperor. She's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm definitely down to your wife. Just scure me a
Speaker 1: pumpkin and something super tall to climb up, and then
Speaker 1: she jumps off and she dies and becomes a bunch
Speaker 1: of tiny fish and she's like, later, loser, you don't
Speaker 1: get to marry me. I'm a hot pumpkin bitch. Now,
Speaker 1: the moral of the story is that now you can
Speaker 1: just not text people back and you can save yourself
Speaker 1: the trouble of becoming a bunch of fish. Now, moving
Speaker 1: on to bigger and gianter topics. What about them big
Speaker 1: ol' honkin pumps and how do people grow those huge
Speaker 1: giant pumpkins.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's quite a quite an effort. Yeah, they do
Speaker 2: have seeds for those. However, they don't necessarily grow to
Speaker 2: be big on their own. You have to kind of
Speaker 2: baby them along. And one of the things a lot
Speaker 2: of people do is that once the pumpkins starts growing,
Speaker 2: they have to keep it turned and they have to
Speaker 2: keep it moving so that it doesn't squash its own
Speaker 2: leaves and everything and prevent it from growing. So they
Speaker 2: have to put something under it. You know, it could
Speaker 2: be cloth, it could be hay or whatever, but they
Speaker 2: put something under it. Some of them feed the pumpkins
Speaker 2: with milk. Some yeah, they do, they do, And there's
Speaker 2: a lot there's a lot of different ways they can
Speaker 2: do things. And of course, growing the biggest pumpkin is
Speaker 2: a long standing thing that's happened. Oh and back at
Speaker 2: back in the early colonial daysh when people would get
Speaker 2: their haircut. They used to put a pumpkin half a
Speaker 2: pumpkin on top of their heads, and they even named
Speaker 2: the town pumpkin Shire because that's how they would cut
Speaker 2: their hair. They would just cut it around the pumpkin.
Speaker 1: Oh like that, yeah, ps New Haven in particular was
Speaker 1: known for this luke, and like Instagram photos of rose
Speaker 1: at brunch, it spread quickly and gave New Englanders the
Speaker 1: nickname Pumpkinheads. Now Boston, Hi, Hi, Boston, You were once
Speaker 1: known as pumpkin Shire. So the next time you enjoyed
Speaker 1: some baked beans from Beantown, just think, wow, you could
Speaker 1: be pumpkin Muncheon instead. So let's say you need a
Speaker 1: haircut in several months, so you've decided to grow a pumpkin.
Speaker 1: Does ann have any chips? First? She says, have a
Speaker 1: space about four feet wide and thirty or forty feet long,
Speaker 1: or or you can train your to grow in a
Speaker 1: circle around the rest of the garden.
Speaker 2: Is cute.
Speaker 1: She says, Plant five or six seeds in each mound,
Speaker 1: and then when they start to sprout, you got to
Speaker 1: thin them out and pluck a couple let only the
Speaker 1: best to grow. She says, it's going to be heartbreaking,
Speaker 1: but it's worth it.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Her book has more growing tips about hot capping them,
Speaker 1: coddling them in cold weather, keeping them cozy as they
Speaker 1: start their journey to pumpkin Town. I guess Pumpkinshire.
Speaker 2: They grow into the fall, and there's a few types
Speaker 2: that can even grow into the winter. So yeah, it
Speaker 2: just depends how they're grown and where they're grown and
Speaker 2: what they put into it to how they will grow.
Speaker 1: Do you have a favorite movie involving a pumpkin?
Speaker 2: I guess Cindero, And mainly I think that's everybody's everybody's
Speaker 2: favored her in that pumpkin It or not carriage, You know,
Speaker 2: that's that's pretty classic. I can't think of any others
Speaker 2: that I've seen right off, and but that's one I
Speaker 2: always liked a lot.
Speaker 1: Okay. Ps. The Tale of Cinderella dates back over two
Speaker 1: thousand years and has taken various forms, many of which
Speaker 1: involve this future princess having a dead mom who's reincarnated
Speaker 1: into a talking fish kind of like those billy, big
Speaker 1: mouthed bass things, but it's your parent chatting you up
Speaker 1: from the grave and shit talking your dad's awful new wife. Now,
Speaker 1: the version with the pumpkin carriage was a far from
Speaker 1: a Walt Disney invention, so don't give him props that
Speaker 1: part of the story was whipped up in the sixteen
Speaker 1: hundreds in France. What about pumpkin carving tips?
Speaker 2: Pumpkin carving tips. I'm not good at carving pumpkins, but
Speaker 2: I'll tell you why. I have carved a pumpkin or two.
Speaker 2: But after a while I got twere I didn't really
Speaker 2: want to carve them. I really wanted to paint them
Speaker 2: or to do something else with them. For some reason,
Speaker 2: I just didn't like to cut them up unless I
Speaker 2: was cooking them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know you are not the only cu
Speaker 1: creviatologist I have heard say that. I understand that there's
Speaker 1: a movement to cook not carve, because it's like you
Speaker 1: put all this water and resources into it, so you're
Speaker 1: just gonna let it run on the porch.
Speaker 2: That's true, that's true.
Speaker 1: Yes, Tempera not to be confused with tempera or acrylic
Speaker 1: paint works well on pumpkins. And if you're like, why
Speaker 1: am I seeing so many turquoise colored pumpkins? What's this trend?
Speaker 2: That is?
Speaker 1: The teal pumpkin project? And on someone's porch, it's a
Speaker 1: sign that there are non food treats being given out.
Speaker 1: So if you're kiddo or shamelessly you trolling your neighborhood
Speaker 1: as an adult for goodies is allergic to peanuts or gluten,
Speaker 1: those houses are like I got you covered with like
Speaker 1: a fake tattoo, some silly putty. So keep an eye
Speaker 1: off for those. And let's say you've painted a face
Speaker 1: on a pumpkin, You've scrubbed it all off, and now
Speaker 1: you want to yum it up.
Speaker 2: Well, you can cook any size pumpkin. You're gonna have
Speaker 2: to cut it up a lot more to get it
Speaker 2: in a pan, but you can cook it. But the
Speaker 2: it's like the difference between a steak, where say what
Speaker 2: it called Philly mignon is gonna cook up a lot
Speaker 2: nicer than a great, big old ten pound steak, just
Speaker 2: partly because of the way it's structured and all. You
Speaker 2: can cook a good pumpkin, even from the big pumpkins,
Speaker 2: you need to process it a lot differently. You probably
Speaker 2: are gonna use something like a pressure cooker, or you're
Speaker 2: gonna dry it and use it that way and grind
Speaker 2: it up as flour or you're gonna do something slightly
Speaker 2: different from what you do with a smaller pumpkin. The
Speaker 2: smaller pumpkins are really delicious. And when we were in Virginia,
Speaker 2: that's one of the things I did was we continued
Speaker 2: to drive along after I got my pumpkin on that
Speaker 2: country road and off to the left, I saw where
Speaker 2: they had picked all the pumpkins, but they had left
Speaker 2: these little, tiny green ones. So we went and got
Speaker 2: the little chiny green ones that were still they were
Speaker 2: but they weren't going to pick them. They just left
Speaker 2: them there and we got this and took them home
Speaker 2: and steamed the best thing I ever ate. I mean,
Speaker 2: they were absolutely delicious. So yeah, each size seat type
Speaker 2: will be a little different. And that's part of the
Speaker 2: magic too, is that there's nothing that you can say, well,
Speaker 2: they're all like this. No, they're not all like this.
Speaker 2: They're all different. Seeds are different within them, seeds dry differently,
Speaker 2: seats have different shapes. They're all kind of the same shape.
Speaker 2: But there are pumpkins that have different, different shaped seeds.
Speaker 2: So yeah, there's a lot of magic.
Speaker 1: Many can I ask you questions from listeners?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, real quick, before we get to patron questions.
Speaker 1: We may have a few words about some sponsors of
Speaker 1: the show who make it possible for us to donate
Speaker 1: each week to a cause of the ologists choosing and
Speaker 1: this week and chose Shriner's Hospitals for Children because children
Speaker 1: and their sets of magic and wonder have a special
Speaker 1: place in her giant heart. Shriner's Hospitals for Children is
Speaker 1: a network of twenty two nonprofit medical facilities across North America.
Speaker 1: So thank you to Anne for choosing them and to
Speaker 1: some of the sponsors for making it possible. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: get to your questions. Meghaley asks, and I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people probably have the same question they did,
Speaker 1: and they include Jonathan and Ambermead, Kaylin Church, Jen s Ellen,
Speaker 1: Silva Rayden, Markham Kyrad, Laura Springer, and Rosemary Galton. Y'all
Speaker 1: wanted to know where did the Jack o' lantern originate?
Speaker 2: The Jack o' lantern actually originated a long time ago,
Speaker 2: and we think back around when Stonehenge and all that
Speaker 2: was well was active. Let me put it that way.
Speaker 2: They think that it goes back that far and that
Speaker 2: Jack was like comparable to the devil and he had
Speaker 2: to be a sort of punished, and he had to
Speaker 2: carry around a light so that people wouldn't be afraid
Speaker 2: of him, that they would know he was coming.
Speaker 1: Here's Johnny.
Speaker 2: So it goes back, it goes back a long way. Again.
Speaker 2: We only know from things that have been written, and
Speaker 2: we don't know in a lot of cases how truly
Speaker 2: accurate they are. So I'm doing my besh to give
Speaker 2: a correct answer.
Speaker 1: Okay. It's also been said that Irish and Scottish kids
Speaker 1: used to carve their Jack O'Lanterns out of turnips or potetatoles,
Speaker 1: and let me tell you, they look like tiny baby
Speaker 1: mummy heads and are so much scarier by so much
Speaker 1: many multitudes than any melon headed Ichabod crane figure. And
Speaker 1: in this tale of Jack and the Devil, so some
Speaker 1: versions say that a guy named Jack trick the devil
Speaker 1: into buying him a beer and then trap the devil
Speaker 1: in the tree, and the devil was like, I am home,
Speaker 1: And so the devil condemned Jack to wander the earth,
Speaker 1: just hoofing it around, carrying a hot coal in a
Speaker 1: turn up, kind of like a smouldering earth purse filled
Speaker 1: with hell fire? Is that to mimic the devil Jack's
Speaker 1: Lanternian probably.
Speaker 2: And also so that it would light the way for
Speaker 2: people in the dark in the in the winter time.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't really like Halloween as we know it now.
Speaker 2: It used to be called sam Hane, and sam Hane
Speaker 2: was so different. It was connected with Celtic people, and
Speaker 2: so it was a different sort of holiday then, And.
Speaker 1: That's so interesting, Okay, so quick aside. Sam Hayne also
Speaker 1: pronounced Sowen, is a Gaelic festival and it celebrates the
Speaker 1: Celtic pagan new Year and the end of the harvest
Speaker 1: season and into the cold times, and feasts are had,
Speaker 1: costumes are donned, fairies are appeased, neighbors are shaken down
Speaker 1: for treats, and dead spirits are invited to come kick
Speaker 1: it before they cross over. And if you're like Day
Speaker 1: of the Dead didn't warshows what a nutty coincidence. It's
Speaker 1: the same day that Mexican holiday honoring and celebrating They're
Speaker 1: Gone and not Forgotten. Used to be celebrated in the
Speaker 1: beginning of summer pre Spanish colonization, but gradually it got
Speaker 1: moved to late October to fit in with Western halloweeny things.
Speaker 1: So if you're into a painting project to day the
Speaker 1: dead skull pumpkins cute as hell on this case, heaven hopefully,
Speaker 1: depending on your relatives. Oh Naomi Barry wants to know
Speaker 1: what's the deal with white and pink pumpkins? How do
Speaker 1: they make them like that?
Speaker 2: They don't make them. They cross pollinate them and they
Speaker 2: grow new varieties when they can. Now, white pumpkins have
Speaker 2: been something that they wanted to develop for a long
Speaker 2: time and they finally were able to. They've had red
Speaker 2: pumpkins reddish. Let's put it this way. They're more red
Speaker 2: than they are orange. So if they cross the red
Speaker 2: with the white, chances are they'll get the pink. But
Speaker 2: the pink is you don't see many pink. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: more rare. So if you'd get a chance to get
Speaker 2: a pink pumpkin, by all mean to get one.
Speaker 1: These, by the bye, are called porcelain doll f one
Speaker 1: varieties or rascal f ones, and they are light, light, peachy, pink,
Speaker 1: lumpy but hardy with deep ribbing. And if you google
Speaker 1: them the porcelain doll pumpkin, they look a little like
Speaker 1: my butt. And I found a website called pink pumpkin
Speaker 1: patch dot org, and it encourages growers to donate a
Speaker 1: portion of the proceeds of their pumpkin sales Pink Pumpkin
Speaker 1: sales to breast cancer charities and research. Because October ps
Speaker 1: For more about breast cancer, listen to the Surgical Oncology
Speaker 1: episode from last October with surgeon doctor Donna Marie Manassi,
Speaker 1: who is full of warmth and charm. Okay. This next
Speaker 1: question was also asked by COLLEENI Bee. Ivan Krischfields wants
Speaker 1: to know how can I make my Jack o' lantern
Speaker 1: last longer.
Speaker 2: Last longer. Paint painted space, keep it in a cool temperature,
Speaker 2: a cool dry temperature if possible, and then when you
Speaker 2: when you see that it's not gonna last forever and ever,
Speaker 2: go ahead and do something with it. Do something with
Speaker 2: the sheets. Dry the sheets in the oven. Go ahead
Speaker 2: and dry the sheets and use them. You can paint them,
Speaker 2: you can dry them and eat them, you can salt them,
Speaker 2: you can use them in recipes, and you can make
Speaker 2: jewelry out of them and make really cool jewelry with
Speaker 2: wooden beads and so forth. So with them. Pumpkin seeds,
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah, they're beautiful. Yeah, and they'll thread.
Speaker 2: You can thread them really well, so the needle will
Speaker 2: go right you use a big needle, but the needle
Speaker 2: go right through cool.
Speaker 1: I never knew that.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, gosh, ok, I know. I look these up
Speaker 1: and they look kind of like puka shells mixed with
Speaker 1: Smarties on an elastic and they're hella cool. So people
Speaker 1: are out there making floral brooches out of pumpkin seeds.
Speaker 1: And if you're ever in a long line or you're
Speaker 1: stranded in a bog, you just not I'm on that necklace, man,
Speaker 1: I'll fend off some parasites while you're at it. Chrispurer
Speaker 1: wants to know, do you watch It's the Great Pumpkin
Speaker 1: Charlie Brown every year?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, is there anything else that's better that? That? Is?
Speaker 2: My all time favorite is Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin.
Speaker 1: True, the Great Pumpkin Rises, the pumpkin patch that he
Speaker 1: thinks is the most sincere.
Speaker 2: He's gotta pick this one, He's got to. I don't
Speaker 2: see how a pumpkin patch could be more sincere than
Speaker 2: this one.
Speaker 1: You can look all.
Speaker 2: Around and there's not a son of hypocrisy, nothing but
Speaker 2: sincerity as far as I can see, There's just nothing
Speaker 2: like it for the holidays.
Speaker 1: This is the best time of year. I'm a November
Speaker 1: baby as well, and okay that November birthdays love fall.
Speaker 2: Absolutely we do. Yeah, we do.
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you for backing my theory. Oh yeah, pol
Speaker 1: and not everyone agreed with me. I'm telling you. It's
Speaker 1: a thing. Ask people at your next awkward business dinner
Speaker 1: or when you're on a jury and you've got some
Speaker 1: time to kill now. This next question was also asked
Speaker 1: my patrons Morgan Ashley, Katie Coast, Sam Taylor, Laura Kenny,
Speaker 1: and Joe Porfino, who simply wrote What's with Pumpkin guts?
Speaker 1: Jacob Farmer wants to know why is it sometimes really
Speaker 1: easy to get the goop out of the inside of
Speaker 1: the pumpkin? And sometimes it's really long.
Speaker 2: Because the pumpkin hasn't either fully matured And there are
Speaker 2: some varieties you think about making spaghetti noodles. If you
Speaker 2: take them out too early, they're really hard to get
Speaker 2: out of the pan and they're harder to deal with.
Speaker 2: If you get them out when they're just right, then
Speaker 2: they're pretty easy to deal with. So it's possible that
Speaker 2: the pumpkin isn't fully right. If the skin is really
Speaker 2: rough and really thick, sometimes it doesn't want to let
Speaker 2: go of this seed.
Speaker 1: That's great advice. I never realized that Dana Jan wants
Speaker 1: to know what is your favorite pumpkin or pumpkin flavored food?
Speaker 1: And how do you feel about pumpkin spices popularity, everything
Speaker 1: being like pumpkin spice flavor.
Speaker 2: Oh, pumpkin spice flavor. Oh, I like it, of course
Speaker 2: I'm not ash. I'm not as crazy about pumpkin drinks.
Speaker 2: I do like.
Speaker 1: Them, okay. Audio note In addition to the white noise
Speaker 1: gurgling fish tank, a grandfather clock just abruptly joined the
Speaker 1: Autumn Symphony, and so we snipped it out. But I
Speaker 1: will paraphrase her answer and not big on PSLs, but
Speaker 1: she'll take a pumpkin spice lattes an occasional treat. She
Speaker 1: also has tons of recipes in her Pumpkin Pumpkin book.
Speaker 1: And she started telling me about jamming stuff into little
Speaker 1: pumpkins like her mom used to do.
Speaker 2: But you have to use small pumpkins and you stuff
Speaker 2: them with just like you would the bail pepper and
Speaker 2: you cook them like the beil pepper.
Speaker 1: Dang, I'm gonna try that.
Speaker 2: And pumpkin chili is another favorite of mine. Pumpkin chili,
Speaker 2: there's a lot. I have a lot of favorites, like it.
Speaker 1: Ugly and Wesley Whitman has a question. I feel like
Speaker 1: this is a heated question. Pumpkin pie or sweet potato pie?
Speaker 1: Which is better?
Speaker 2: Actually? I love both, really, I really love both, And
Speaker 2: to me, I'll take either one. I think, you know what,
Speaker 2: because sweet potatoes are fabulous, she ams are fabulous, and
Speaker 2: there's so many things she can do with them, so
Speaker 2: many ways she can cook them. So I guess one
Speaker 2: thing I haven't done yet with pumpkins, and I just
Speaker 2: thought about it when you mentioned sweet potatoes is nowadays
Speaker 2: you can buy sweet potato fries. You've probably had them you.
Speaker 2: I've never made pumpkin fries, So that's a thought I
Speaker 2: may have to go in the next edition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, someone out there with a deep fryar like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that goes announcement. Everyone sit down, gather yourselves. I gots
Speaker 1: something to tell you. Pumpkin fries do exist. You can
Speaker 1: even bake them at home if you don't have access
Speaker 1: to a commercial fryer. This is big news. We're all
Speaker 1: going to do this. Also, we had a few questions
Speaker 1: about the best autumn sport. This was asked by Justin
Speaker 1: World Championship walker and Michael Trebash sherman. Nathan Bronick, who
Speaker 1: is also my cousin, wants to know how do they
Speaker 1: create thick wall hybrid pumpkins for punkin chunkin Chunk.
Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely. One of my second edition book had a
Speaker 2: picture of the pumpkin chunkin Punkin chunkin competition. You know, actually,
Speaker 2: any large pumpkin, if it's still very firm and very ripe,
Speaker 2: it's gonna it's gonna be a good chunker. They they
Speaker 2: don't generally have thin they don't have thin shells. There
Speaker 2: are some that do, but they tend to be smaller,
Speaker 2: and they tend to be not well, they're not healthy.
Speaker 2: Healthy pumpkin is a chunker.
Speaker 1: To get that tattoo. How do you feel about the
Speaker 1: band smashing pumpkins?
Speaker 2: Oh? I like that a lot. I think that's really cool.
Speaker 1: And a couple more questions. If that's okay?
Speaker 2: Oh sure.
Speaker 1: Isabel Helper wants to know is it the most underrated vegetable?
Speaker 2: Well, it's not a vegetable, but yes, it's definitely underrated.
Speaker 2: It's really high in vitamin content and a lot of
Speaker 2: vegetarians do recognize the value of it in meals and
Speaker 2: the many ways you can use it in a meal.
Speaker 1: Becky Woodriff has a great question. She wants to know
Speaker 1: what's with those bags of teeny tiny pumpkins in the
Speaker 1: produce aisle. Are they baby pumpkins or does that type
Speaker 1: naturally grow to that size? You know that one.
Speaker 2: Actually, those are a special variety and they grow them
Speaker 2: that way. They're never gonna get big. They're they're grown
Speaker 2: to be small like that. Vandos slash pretty much a
Speaker 2: long time. Yeah, because they are small, they don't to rot,
Speaker 2: especially if you don't carve them up, if you're just
Speaker 2: having them sitting there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the little desk pumpkins, Yeah, they'll lashed. Okay. Side
Speaker 1: note one of those tiny tiny pumpkins that Linda from
Speaker 1: Accounting has on our desk from like August thirty first
Speaker 1: until December first. Okay. They have many names among them
Speaker 1: Baby Boo, Pumpkin, Munchkin, Baby Pam. We be little Hooligan,
Speaker 1: mischief trickster again supporting my theory that you can just
Speaker 1: name a new pumpkin after your cat. Also, you know
Speaker 1: those weird teeny ones that grow on sticks that are
Speaker 1: always in the floral department, Those are egg plants which
Speaker 1: your berries trust. No one, no one. Victoria Helen wants
Speaker 1: to know. Have you heard the fact that people used
Speaker 1: to give pumpkins to their significant others to propose to them.
Speaker 2: I haven't heard that one, but it's very possible because
Speaker 2: pumpkins were used in so many ways.
Speaker 1: I'll look into that. Okay. I couldn't find anything history
Speaker 1: about promising one's future till death with a pumpkin, but
Speaker 1: it did lead me down this syrupy sweet internet hole
Speaker 1: to a website that gave stumped would be fiance's ideas
Speaker 1: of how to propose via pumpkin like carving the question
Speaker 1: and then turning it around. You could cut a hole
Speaker 1: in the bottom of a pumpkin, and then you can
Speaker 1: hide a ring in the slimy guts and have them
Speaker 1: carve it from the top. Or you can rent a
Speaker 1: pumpkin field and spell a message out via dozens of
Speaker 1: pumpkins and then ride over it in an air balloon.
Speaker 1: If you want to spend your entire wedding budget before
Speaker 1: they even say yes. Now, you might be out of
Speaker 1: your gourd, but perhaps it's worth a try if they
Speaker 1: love you. Warts and all. Okay, speaking of which, Brian
Speaker 1: Wharton wants to know, why do pumpkins get the weird
Speaker 1: wort looking thingies.
Speaker 2: Oh well, it's partly how they're grown and also the variety.
Speaker 2: Some pumpkins are going to be very lumpy and brumpy
Speaker 2: because it's part of their genetic makeup, and others will
Speaker 2: have a really smooth skin. I like the ones that
Speaker 2: have little wart thingies on them because they're they're they're different,
Speaker 2: you know, they're they're their own little characters, and to me,
Speaker 2: it makes them look more interesting.
Speaker 1: So warts and all, you love them? Warts and all?
Speaker 2: Yep?
Speaker 1: Okay, I look this up because Ella, Sugarman and Sarah
Speaker 1: also had questions and pumpkin worts are called ready for
Speaker 1: this warts, they're called warts, and they can be caused
Speaker 1: by water imbalances, viruses, bugs, or just genetics. But these
Speaker 1: pumpkins all deserve hugs anyway. Alex Allen asked, could you
Speaker 1: give a shout out for our local native qu Cubita fodissima.
Speaker 1: Does that sound familiar.
Speaker 2: H not that one. But again there's all kinds of
Speaker 2: new ones out.
Speaker 1: Okay, the one he's talking about is the stinking gord,
Speaker 1: the buffalo gord, the calabazia, coyote gord, veetid gourd, and
Speaker 1: other colorful names. And it's a small, bitter little thing.
Speaker 1: And are looking into its high oil content or the
Speaker 1: carbohydrates and the root stores as a source for biofuel.
Speaker 1: So one day perhaps the stream of a pumpkin carriage
Speaker 1: will come true. Glass slippers, we always have a platform,
Speaker 1: looseight heels anyway between new advancements with old pumpkins or
Speaker 1: new varieties being developed, and said, she can hardly keep up.
Speaker 2: There's new touch coming out every single year, so I'd
Speaker 2: be putting out a new addition every year, and that's
Speaker 2: too much work. Too much work. I want to play
Speaker 2: and have fun.
Speaker 1: As she wants to know. Can you eat the guts
Speaker 1: of a pumpkin?
Speaker 2: Can?
Speaker 1: Can you eat the guts of a pumpkin?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, it depends on how you cook it and
Speaker 2: how you but if you've ever eaten spaghetti, squash or
Speaker 2: some of those, you can essentially eat the innerns of
Speaker 2: the pumpkin. Yeah, that's amazing. So yeah, you can eat them. There,
Speaker 2: it's not quite like eating shay an acorn square or
Speaker 2: one of those. It's it's not going to be quite
Speaker 2: the same. You can eat them.
Speaker 1: I will personally gut every one of you. Oh so
Speaker 1: a pumpkin is erry and also squash, but not a vegetable.
Speaker 1: But some patrons also had questions about pumpkins and gourds,
Speaker 1: such as Sarah Chad, Dylan Howe's Elizabeth la Plume and
Speaker 1: The Glide's Gain and Delilah Green, who simply typed those
Speaker 1: little gray pumpkins and the ones with the bumps all
Speaker 1: over them. That's the question. Okay, one last question. Pumpkins
Speaker 1: and gourds. Are they different or is it?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, no, they're they're very different. Yeah, they're very different.
Speaker 2: Gorge are more closely related to squash, but they're not
Speaker 2: even thaty. They're they're their own little thing and they
Speaker 2: have a very very hard shell and when they are ripe,
Speaker 2: they're very very hard. You don't eat gorge, generally speaking,
Speaker 2: but you can paint on them, you can carve them,
Speaker 2: you can do all kinds of things like that. So
Speaker 2: they have their creative side too, and I love gords.
Speaker 2: I've seen some absolutely fabulous gourd art carved, painted, and otherwise.
Speaker 1: When do you start decorating for Halloween.
Speaker 2: Doe, I start as soon as I can get my
Speaker 2: hands on a pumpkin and have one. Yet, right I
Speaker 2: don't have one. We don't have a car right now.
Speaker 2: We're waiting for that to come home from the shop,
Speaker 2: so I haven't been able to get there. But when
Speaker 2: I do, and plus, if I go in the grocery store,
Speaker 2: I may not find that perfect pumpkin. I may have
Speaker 2: to go to several places before I found what I want.
Speaker 2: I don't know what color it's going to be this year,
Speaker 2: or what shape or the size. I'm going to have
Speaker 2: to see them and it's going to just have to
Speaker 2: kind of feel right when I look at it. I
Speaker 2: don't buy a pumpkin just to buy the pumpkin. It
Speaker 2: has to speak to me. And when it speaks to me,
Speaker 2: I know it.
Speaker 1: Oh, that is the way you have to pick out
Speaker 1: a pumpkin.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's the way I pick in my out.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like the pumpkin picks you really
Speaker 1: in a way it does in the way it does. Ye,
Speaker 1: you just go with your heart. When it comes to
Speaker 1: pumpkin picking.
Speaker 2: You do pumpkin picking.
Speaker 1: And now, what is the one thing about writing a
Speaker 1: book about pumpkins, or pumpkin research, or pumpkins themselves that
Speaker 1: really annoys you?
Speaker 2: That annoys me? Having to do recipes the same way
Speaker 2: over and over and over again. And that would be
Speaker 2: true if I were writing a bread cookbook or a
Speaker 2: steak cookbook or anything I do not like to I
Speaker 2: don't like to go by the rules. I could throw
Speaker 2: it in there and it works. You know he's intuition too.
Speaker 2: Huh yeah, yeah, yeah. When you cook. To me, cooking
Speaker 2: is a creative thing. Yes, you're cooking to fill your belly,
Speaker 2: but you also want to put love and creativity into it,
Speaker 2: especially if you're cooking for other people in your life
Speaker 2: that you care about. You're giving up yourself. You're not
Speaker 2: just giving the food, you're giving of yourself. And you
Speaker 2: want to put your best foot forward, but not in
Speaker 2: a way that we have to be rigid about how
Speaker 2: we do it.
Speaker 1: Oh. One more thing about Ann's work.
Speaker 2: I love learning things. I'll never stop studying as long
Speaker 2: as I live. I'll probably never stop cooking, but I'll
Speaker 2: always cook in my own way. I won't cook by
Speaker 2: other people's standards.
Speaker 1: Do your own thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I made my first. I love fruitcake, and most
Speaker 2: people go fruitcake, But I love fruitcake, but it's got
Speaker 2: to be a certain kind of fruitcake that has a
Speaker 2: lot of nuts, a lot of dried fruit, some liquor,
Speaker 2: and I like it when it's really robust. Let me
Speaker 2: put it that way. And so I made my first
Speaker 2: robust fruitcake this last November, I think, and oh my god,
Speaker 2: I ate the whole thing all by myself for my
Speaker 2: significant other. Richard does not like fruitcake, but that was okay.
Speaker 2: I made it for me and I enjoyed everybody. It
Speaker 2: took me a month to eat it all, but you
Speaker 2: know what, it was the best fruitcake I ever had.
Speaker 2: I could write a fruitcake cookbook. That's going to be
Speaker 2: next for you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I literally forgot to ask her what her favorite thing
Speaker 1: about pumpkins are. So I sent her a quick email
Speaker 1: and she wrote right back and said, my favorite thing
Speaker 1: about pumpkins is that they, like we, are constantly evolved
Speaker 1: from year to year. They never become born, and each
Speaker 1: new generation looks forward to them with great anticipation. Woo,
Speaker 1: thank you from my heart and always.
Speaker 2: It's been a joy to be here, and I think
Speaker 2: you're doing a wonderful job. And I wish all the
Speaker 2: people out there who are getting ready to celebrate the fall,
Speaker 2: I wish you all a happy autumn and a happy
Speaker 2: holiday season. And you know what, it's your way. If
Speaker 2: you don't like to cook it a certain way, cook
Speaker 2: it the way you like it, it's okay. You have
Speaker 2: permission to do that. You have permission to be who
Speaker 2: you are and who you like to be best. I
Speaker 2: was trying to think one little quick thing when years
Speaker 2: ago up in La a bunch of us went out
Speaker 2: to celebrate Halloween up in Hollywood, and we decided to
Speaker 2: be a box of crayons and I got to be pink.
Speaker 2: It's not my favorite color, but I was the pink.
Speaker 2: And of all the costumes, all of them got all
Speaker 2: messed up, but me, my costume was still pristine. When
Speaker 2: I came back home, I was like, oh yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I got my But we had to sort of, you
Speaker 2: know what. Our costumes went all the way down to
Speaker 2: our ankle, like we had to hop along. We couldn't walk.
Speaker 2: We had to hop all the way through Hollywood, and
Speaker 2: it was truly one of the best grown up Halloweens.
Speaker 1: So go out and enjoy Halloween.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go out and enjoy Halloween, and enjoy every day
Speaker 2: of your life because you never know what the next
Speaker 2: day is going to bring, and enjoy it while you're
Speaker 2: there to enjoy it and cooking or having pumpkins. You
Speaker 2: know what, it's what means something to you, what's important,
Speaker 2: what you make magic in your life. And even if
Speaker 2: you're not a believer in magic, is most people describe it.
Speaker 2: Magic is a joy of living just that simple, so that.
Speaker 1: There's magic and a pumpkin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, every day. And thank you very kindly for attending
Speaker 2: this interview, which really appreciated.
Speaker 1: Thanks for letting me come over it all.
Speaker 2: You know what, that's the kind of thing I like, Bess.
Speaker 2: I'm very spontaneous. I do things on the spur of
Speaker 2: the moment, and that's the way I like it.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Okay, take care So.
Speaker 1: Ask smart folks questions because chances are what caused them
Speaker 1: to seek the answer was the exact same curiosity that
Speaker 1: you've got now to buy and Copeland's book, which I
Speaker 1: definitely suggest you do. It is delightful as is she
Speaker 1: Her book is called Pumpkin, Pumpkin Folklore, History, Planting Hints,
Speaker 1: and Good Eating. There's tons of recipes in it. You'll
Speaker 1: find a link in the show notes to the Amazon
Speaker 1: page where you can order it in paperback. It's also
Speaker 1: available on Kindle, and there's also a link in the
Speaker 1: show notes to the sponsors of the show and to
Speaker 1: the Shiner's Hospitals for Children and more. Links, as always,
Speaker 1: are up at aliward dot com, slash Ologies, slash qu
Speaker 1: Crepetology Now. For Ologies Merch, go to ologiesmerch dot com
Speaker 1: or ali Ward dot com. Thank you, Shannon Felt to
Speaker 1: some Body Dutch of the podcast you are that for
Speaker 1: managing that. Also thanks to Hannahlippo and Aaron Talbert for
Speaker 1: admitting the Ologies podcast Facebook group. Thank you to assistant
Speaker 1: editor Jared Sleeper of the podcast My Good, Bad Brain,
Speaker 1: and of course to a dude with a lot of
Speaker 1: guts but who hates pumpkin guts, Stephen Ray Morris of
Speaker 1: the per cast and see Jurassic Right. The theme song
Speaker 1: is called Allie at the Museum. It was written for
Speaker 1: this podcast by Nick Thorburn of the very good band
Speaker 1: Islands and if you stick around till the end of
Speaker 1: the episode. You know, I tell you a secret. This
Speaker 1: week's secret is that to make a carved pumpkin last longer,
Speaker 1: you can also spray diluted bleach inside. But then you
Speaker 1: can't have your jack o lantern and eat it too.
Speaker 1: And also, you know when people carve pumpkins to look
Speaker 1: like they're barfing off their own guts. Whenever I see that,
Speaker 1: I get physically nauseated, Like just thinking about it makes
Speaker 1: me like like mission accomplished. Halloween terrifying. It's too real.
Speaker 1: You got me, tricksters. So for breeze your scarves. Let's
Speaker 1: meet here next week for another October Spookology spooped over.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited.
Speaker 2: They're so good.
Speaker 1: Oh there is so good.
Speaker 3: Okay, good bye, pacodermatology, bombiology or doo zoology, litology, technology, meteorology, parahology, technology, seriology, schology.
Speaker 4: Okay, God sa gross, I hate hate the most were
Speaker 4: the sitting here, The Thames are along the best coast
Speaker 4: and African gods.
Speaker 2: Gross