Questions We re Often Asked: What to do with Your Giant Pumpkin

Most growers of the appropriately botanically named Cucurbita maxima admit it their carefully nurtured vegetables end up on the compost heap. Otherwise, the estimate is approximately two pounds, or a kilo, of pumpkin per pie. Thus, you must really dote on pumpkin pie as well as jazz up the frankly bland mush. A recommended recipe involves two teaspoons each of cinnamon, ginger, and allspice, along with a half-teaspoon of ground nutmeg and a quarter-teaspoon of ground cloves.

However, not everyone will share your enthusiasm. Michael Tortorella of The New York Times opined: Field pumpkins . . . are most suitable for carving into jack-o -lanterns or feeding to donkeys. Save the seeds; they could be worth big bucks. When Henry David Thoreau grew his prize-winning 1230-pound pumpkin, he sold it to an entrepreneur who offered the seeds for sale at a dime each no small amount in mid-19th century America. Today, seeds from scale-tipping specimens are often put up for auction at clubs or swapped with other growers.

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The pumpkin is an American icon, explains Rebecca Rupp. She reminds us of such literary greats as Washington Irvine, John Greenleaf Whittier, and L. Frank Baum while the inevitable  when the frost is on the punkin  is quoted from James Whitcomb Riley. Before them though French lawyer and nursery tale writer Charles Perrault had Cinderella ride to her prince s ball in a coach magically moved out of the residential pumpkin patch. And let us not forget the late cartoonist Charles Schultz s giant pumpkin hopefully flying from its field to shower toys on well-behaved children the world over. More mature male readers may appreciate the comparison of pumpkins with female anatomy. W. C. Fields once recalled a lass from the South Seas:  Good old Pago Pago. I ll tell you more about the place some other time. Yes. I used to know a girl down there. Sadie! Yes. Some pumpkins! Maybe you've heard about her? She done me dirt, she did. Well, I wasn't the only one. At least I'm alive to tell about it!    Replete with pumpkin pie, what better way to end a sociable evening than to sit around gently digesting while telling pumpkin jokes? Ten terrible ones: What is a pumpkin s favourite sport? Squash What s the ratio of a pumpkin s circumference to its diameter? Pumpkin pi Why did the pumpkin cross the road? It fell off the wagon Why was the Jack o  Lantern afraid to cross the road? No guts Isn't it dangerous for pumpkins to cross a road? No, they always wait for a crossing gourd What do you use to mend a Jack o  Lantern? A pumpkin patch Why were the two pumpkins so close? Deep roots Why do pumpkins never quarrel? Because they have no stomach for fighting When is a pumpkin not a pumpkin? When you drop it then it s a squash. Why did the elephant paint his toenails orange? So he could hide in the pumpkin patch