Showing posts with label pumpkin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pumpkin. Show all posts

October 3 – Kale and Pumpkin Seed Day!

Posted October 3, 2018

(First Wednesday of October)

Every day is a food holiday (or at least so it seems), but the first Wednesday of October is a holiday for two foods that are touted as very healthy:

Kale.


And pumpkin seeds.





National Kale Day

Kale is one of those dark green, leafy vegetables everyone says we should eat more of. It's considered a superfood because it has nutrients that can fight obesity, diabetes, heart disease; it has compounds that work to prevent cancer and are anti-inflammatory. It may even help boost low moods!

Kale is also inexpensive and very hardy. It can be grown in much worse conditions than can most plants - even in cold places or on windy rooftop gardens. It travels well and lasts up to a week when stored properly.

Unfortunately, kale has a rep for being yick-to-eat. People laughingly say that it's too health to be tasty. These recipes beg to differ.





National Pumpkin Seed Day

We all know that nuts and peanuts can be nutritious; well, pumpkin seeds are nutritious, too! They have even more protein and magnesium than almonds or peanuts. They are also a good source of dietary fiber, iron, niacin, manganese, zinc, and phosphorus. 

This chart is from Superseedz, a company that sells flavored pumpkin seeds:



Actually, almost all parts of the pumpkin plant are edible. The fleshy shell of the fruit is the part that is carved at Halloween time - but it's also the part that makes the pumpkin in pumpkin pie, pumpkin pancakes and pumpkin spice lattes. In addition to the shell and the seeds, the leaves and the flowers of pumpkin plants are edible!



Pumpkin seeds, called pepitas, are a common ingredient in Mexican cuisine, and evidence shows us that pumpkins were grown by people even before maize (corn) or beans. And I mean WAY before: We think that pumpkins were "domesticated" (in other words, planted and grown by people) from 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, and maize and beans were domesticated only about 4,000 years ago!

Pumpkin seed enchiladas

Here are some yummy ways to prepare pumpkin seeds.







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November 7 – Pumpkin Destruction Day

Posted on November 7, 2015
(First Saturday of November)


The first Saturday of November is Pumpkin Destruction Day at The Rock Ranch in Georgia. People are able to bash, smash, chunk, or drop their pumpkins. There are pumpkin-bombing planes (hmmm...this worries me a bit!), pumpkin-demolishing monster trucks, and pumpkin archery. There is a 50-foot fork lift from which you can drop your pumpkin, giant hammers with which you can smash your pumpkin, and even a cannon with which to shoot your pumpkin (with a satisfying squish-splash when hit hits the ground). There are games of pumpkin darts and pumpkin bowling.




In other ways, you can destroy and demolish your pumpkins in almost every way possible!

Except, I guess, they don't bring in elephants! They probably should bring in a few elephants! 

By the way...I think it is interesting that The Rock Ranch sells pumpkins earlier in the fall. They advertise that they sell all shapes and sizes of pumpkins. Many families enjoy taking autumn photos in the pumpkin patch early in the season – and, I imagine, take less-beautiful photos of Pumpkin Destruction Day!

Or videos...

I wonder if they play music by Smashing Pumpkins during the event? 

Of course, smashing pumpkins can be satisfying because they are partially hollow and filled with yucky guts. Just remember to never, ever squish/squash, destroy/demolish, or otherwise smash pumpkins that do not belong to you!!


I got to wondering...

As I saw the elephants squashing pumpkins video I linked to above, I realized that the zoo organizing the event called it “the Squishing of the Squash.” And I got to wondering about the difference between squashes, gourds, vegetable marrows, and pumpkins.



There are so many variations in color
in the pumpkin / squash / gourd /
marrow family, you can create a sort
of mosaic with them.
I discovered that there is quite a bit of overlap between these names – with one word or another used for a particular variation depending on where you live. The only hope to sort them out is to use species names...but even that is tricky, because each species name includes a LOT of what I think of as very different foods / decorative gourds!

First, pumpkins, gourds, squashes, and marrows all belong to the family Cucubitaceae, which also includes melons and cucumbers.

That family is subdivided into 125 genera, one of which is Cucurbita.

The genus Cucurbita includes four species that we commonly call pumkins, squash, gourds, or marrows:

C. pepo
  • Zucchini
    most jack-o-lantern pumpkins
  • acorn squash
  • delicata squash
  • most ornamental gourds
  • vegetable marrows
  • zucchini
  • pattypan
  • spaghetti squash
Vegetable marrows
jack-o-lantern pumpkins

C. maxima
  • hubbard squash
  • giant pumpkins
  • buttercup squash
  • pink banana squash
  • gray banana squash
  • jarrahdale squash
  • kabocha squash
  • winter keeper squash
  • Cinderella pumpkins
Cinderella pumpkins

C. moschata
  • butternut squash
  • futtsu squash
  • Long Island cheese pumpkin
  • winter crookneck squash
  • Pennsylvania Dutch crookneck
  • Seminole pumpkin
Butternut Squash
C. argyrosperma
  • cushaws

Another common “gourd” is another genus:

Lagenaria siceraria
  • calabash, or bottle gourd
Calabashes

Most of the pumpkins, gourds, and squashes are from the New World, specifically North America, but of course many of these names are from Old World languages such as Italian (zucchini) and French (pumpkin, which comes from pompon). The calabash is an Old World plant often used for making water containers.


Also on this date:





















Anniversary of the collapse of a bridge













Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

And here are my Pinterest boards for:





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November 2, 2012 - Punkin Chunkin Days




 This is a big event in Delaware. A bunch of people have created machines to throw pumpkins—the rule is, the pumpkin must leave the machine still whole—and during the next three days, those machines will go head-to-head (well, um, metal-to-metal?) in a giant punkin-chunkin contest. Who will win with the farthest pumpkin throw?

The contest has added a beauty pageant and cooking contest and chili cookoff and fireworks—lots of great stuff for the whole family! But the main event is watching the glorified slingshots and catapults and robot arms and other machines hurl pumpkins in an effort to achieve the longest, farthest pumpkin throw.

You can have your own miniature punkin chunkin day. Can you contrive a machine that can throw a small pumpkin? Think large rubber bands between two supports, or a catcher's mitt on a spring-lever, or a sling that can spin and then release, or...?

(Remember, the official Punkin Chunkin event started tiny—no audience, just three guys with their machines and some pumpkins. The first winning machine hurled a pumpkin 126 feet—and last year's winner flew farther than 3,000 feet, in front of a crowd of more than 20,000 people!)

Learn how the Chunkin machines work here. 

Instead of chunkin punkins, perhaps you'd like to start off small. How about building a catapult to hurl large marshmallows? 


UPDATE: Hurricane Sandy dropped a lot of water on the Punkin Chunkin fields, and they are still a bit muddy. Organizers are going to set up today but not will hold the planned Friday events and machine practice runs. 


Also on this date:







Mathematician George Boole's birthday 









All Souls' Day 


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