PRINCETON: Pumpkinmania! Glorious orange squash are a vital part of autumn

It was a on a hot, humid day in the middle of August when I started to get tired of the green.

I was doing my best to get rid of it, mowing the lawn and pulling weeds (including a 3-foot monstrosity that looked like a prop from a high school production of “Little Shop of Horrors”), but the results were merely shorter grass and fewer weeds.

Green is good environmentally but the color gets tiresome by late summer. Everywhere you look there are green leaves and green lawns. Worst of all are the high green weeds growing on the sides of roads — their mere presence makes me feel itchy.

People treasure summer for its warm weather, corn and lazy days but, for me, it’s a season lacking in personality. Autumn is nature’s way of getting rid of the green and adding a little color to our world. It’s when we pick apples of red, yellow and (sigh) green. Leaves develop wondrous color combinations. Even the sky is more vibrant with its glowing sunsets and the colorful harvest moon filling the horizon.

And there are pumpkins! Those glorious orange squash (they’re a fruit, not a vegetable) are a vital part of autumn. They’re used to make pies, muffins, cookies, bread, soup, fudge, pancakes and beer (like the pumpkin beer sold at Triumph Brewing Company in Princeton). Their seeds can be baked for a snack, and according to the Web site amishghords.com, you can even make a birdhouse out of a pumpkin.

Pumpkins have carved out a place in our literature and pop culture. One of America’s first great writers, Washington Irving, had the Headless Horseman throw a jack-o’-lantern at Ichabod Crane, Cinderella’s godmother turned a pumpkin into a carriage, and generations of children have watched Linus faithfully wait in his sincere pumpkin patch for the Great Pumpkin to appear.

A more horrific pumpkin-patch discovery was made in the movie “Pumpkinhead,” and John Carpenter set the perfect mood in the opening of his original “Halloween” with its glowing jack-o’-lantern and that creepy tune.

Speaking of jack-o’-lanterns, creating them is a highlight of my year. I started carving them with my nephew many years ago. I now carve them with my daughter. I’m no artist, and there’s nothing fancy about my jack-o’-lanterns, just some triangle eyes and nose and a mouth with a few teeth in them, but those glowing faces are a source of personal pride each and every year.

According to the History Channel’s Web site, the jack-o’-lantern was born from an Irish tale about a man named Stingy Jack who shared a drink with the Devil. Not wanting to pay for his libation, Jack tricked the Devil into turning himself into a coin to pay their tab. Jack then kept the coin in his pocket near a cross so the Devil couldn’t return to his original form. Jack agreed to free the Devil on the condition that he not bother Jack for a year, and not claim his soul if he dies.

Jack played some other tricks on the Devil (who apparently isn’t very bright). When Jack died, God banned him from heaven because of his antics. An angry Devil kept his promise to Jack by not claiming his soul, thus forbidding him entry to hell. The Devil sent Jack back to earth with a burning coal as his only light. Jack placed the coal in an empty turnip and has traveled the planet ever since.

Mike Russo, of Russo’s Orchard Lane Farm in Allentown, says he started planting this year’s pumpkin crop over seven or eight acres in early June. The strange weather this summer complicated things a bit, but he already had pumpkins ready for picking by early September and expected to have enough for the Halloween season.

“Most of our pumpkins are sold here,” Mr. Russo says. “We do have a couple of wholesale people who buy pumpkins from us but most of them are sold direct. In the fall time, we do a hayride and corn maze, and we also have a pumpkin field that the hayride wagon stops at. So people can either pick their pumpkin out in the field, or we have a field that people can walk through if they don’t want to pay to take the hayride.”

Most of the pumpkins sold at Russo’s are used for decorative purposes but there are customers who purchase fresh pumpkins for baking. If you are interested in whipping up your own pumpkin filling, it’s best to avoid the large orange pumpkins we typically carve faces into.

“A lot of people don’t use the big pumpkins because they’re not as meaty inside and they tend to be a little more watery,” Mr. Russo says. If you’re looking to create tasty pumpkin treats, Mr. Russo suggests cheese pumpkins, sugar pumpkins or hubbard squash. Sugar pumpkins are round and medium-sized, about 2 or 4 pounds. Hubbard squash come in different shapes and can be red or gray.

Cheese pumpkins are especially good for pumpkin pie, according to Mr. Russo. “It kind of reminds you of Cinderella’s pumpkin,” he says. “It’s short and squatty and fat. It has a really deep orange (filling) inside.”

Most people make pumpkin pies from a canned filling because cutting up a pumpkin, and boiling its filling is lots of work. But the taste of pies made from fresh pumpkin may be worth the effort.

“There’s a big difference,” Mr. Russo says. “It’s a lot more flavor. Canned pumpkins are good but when you get someone who makes a fresh pumpkin pie, there’s a big difference in taste and the texture.”

My wife and I had a minor disagreement when, in the spring, we planned our first-ever vegetable garden. I wanted to grow pumpkins, but several people told my wife that they sprawl and take over a garden.

I saw no downside in this. I imagined a yard full of glorious orange pumpkins. “We’ll give them away to everyone in the neighborhood,” I told her. “We’ll be the happy pumpkin people!”

It reminded me of “Too Many Pumpkins,” a book by Linda White that I read to my daughter every year. It’s about a woman named Rebecca Estelle, who absolutely hates pumpkins. Stuck with an unexpected crop of them, she frees herself of the unwanted bounty by baking treats and carving jack-o’- lanterns, which she gives to her neighbors. The experience brings her so much joy that she keeps a few last seeds for planting the next year.
I don’t think I’m going to be the Rebecca Estelle of my neighborhood this year. We planted pumpkin seeds, but I think we were too late to get any actual pumpkins in time for Halloween. Those vines are sprawling, though, just like people told my wife. I still think it’s worth it.

Maybe this year, we’ll carve jack-o’-lanterns for Christmas.