Hi everybody!
The leaves on the trees in my neighbourhood are orange and yellow now, and so are the pumpkins! There are piles of big orange pumpkins in all the stores. Do you have pumpkins in China? I ask you this question because I read recently about a couple from the P.R.C. who moved here and bought a fruit and vegetable store. They had never seen a pumpkin until people came to their store asking for them, and didn't understand the late-October rush to buy them. They were even more perplexed to be told that hardly anyone actually ate them; everyone just carved face patterns on them and then put them on their front steps.
Sometimes we eat them. Most often we scoop out the pulp and put candles or lights inside so that the eyes, nose and mouth carved into them will shine out with fierce and scary glee. If you do it that way they may not be edible later as they dry out, or get burnt black spots and a smoky taste from the candle.) It is traditional to carve triangular eyes and nose and a big mouth with lots of teeth! Lots of people are creative and make original funny and strange faces. Occasionally they paint around the cut out features and dress them up with hats and other things. When I went to the public library last week there were many small and medium sized pumpkins with faces carved into them on the front desk and on book shelves, here and there.
Pumpkins are like extremely large gourds. They usually weigh around 3, 5, 10, of 15 pounds. There have been 100 pound championship pumpkins. They have very hard and deeply colourful outer skin, under which is dense, light yellow-coloured edible flesh which you cut from the outer skin and cook like squash. Inside they are sort of hollow, filled with a great deal of fibre and many large, dark green, flat seeds. The seeds are often roasted, then you split them and eat the kernel. Pumpkins and seeds are very nutritious.
At the library I saw they had turned them on their sides so the big green stems stuck out from amongst the deep grooves surrounding them like noses in a wrinkled face. They carved scary or laughing eyes above the nose, and mouths with teeth grinning, at you below the nose. They looked great! And very decorative. Spooky heads, ready and pretending to scare people. If you just cut through the tough orange skin, exposing the yellow flesh, and don't take out the seeds and pulp it is possible to cook and eat the pumpkin later. We cook the flesh into a mash that you combine with eggs, cream and spices, pour into a pastry lined pan and bake into a delicious pumpkin pie. Pumpkin puddings and pumpkin soups are other possibilities. Most people love pumpkin pie with whipped cream piled on top, or with a little ice cream. Yum Yum Yum.
Tonight there will be many costume parties for kids and also for adults. I'm good at concocting costumes. It is also fun to make scary decorations to hang on the wall near your door. One year I made three life-sized characters. It is for your own fun and so young "trick or treaters" will enjoy themselves more. These are neighbourhood children who come knocking, asking for candies which they collect in sacks or pillow-slips. Usually their parents are somewhere nearby, usually standing down at the end of your sidewalk waiting to make sure the little ones are safe.
So tonight is a time of adventure and fun for many of us. Those who get, those who give, and those who party. Once upon a time, centuries ago, it was believed that October 31st was a holy night --(called All Hallows,) when the spirits of the dead walked again on earth. Now it has become a time for fun and games.
I hope you wish you were here! :-)))
Best wishes, Mary, writing from Canada
