Pumpkins carve a chapter in literary history

Cinderella’s magical coach that would carry her to the royal ball at the castle was a symmetrical, but slightly squatty, brilliant reddish-orange pumpkin that was harvested from her cold-hearted stepmother’s garden.

“Cinderella,” of course, is a 1950 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney, a great critical and commercial hit that was nominated for three Academy Awards, including the “Original Song” with “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo.” It was sung by Verna Felton, the voice of the benevolent fairy godmother.

The story itself predates Disney; its roots go back to ancient Greece. In the modern storybook version, the fairy godmother scooped the goop out of the inside of the pumpkin, “leaving nothing but the rind. Having done this, she struck the pumpkin with her wand, and it was instantly turned into a fine coach, gilded all over with gold.”

Indeed, Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage is, by far, “the most famous pumpkin of all time found in literature,” writes Diana Biller, a freelance writer and author from Los Angeles. Her essay was published by Barnes & Noble Booksellers.

The modern Cinderella story was published in 1697, within “The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault.” Charles Perrault was a French author who laid the foundation for a new literary genre, the fairy tale.

Other well-known Perrault tales include “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Puss in Boots,” “The Sleeping Beauty” and “Bluebeard.” Also in 1697, Perrault published a collection of folktales with the subtitle “Tales of My Mother Goose.” (Do you suppose the goose was a gander?)

The runner-up literary pumpkin is the Great Pumpkin, created by cartoonist Charles Schulz. The Great Pumpkin, Biller wrote, is a holiday giant like Santa Claus, but it has only one die-hard believer – Linus van Pelt.

The Great Pumpkin is yet to appear on Halloween night, but dagnabbit, Linus never stops believing it will come.

Schulz introduced the Great Pumpkin on a television special in 1966. The early characters from the Peanuts gang were all there – Charlie Brown, Sally Brown, Snoopy, Lucy van Pelt, Schroeder, Pig-Pen, Violet, Frieda, Patty and Shermy.

On Halloween night, Linus waits patiently, standing in the hometown pumpkin patch in Sebastopol, Calif., a small town in Sonoma County, where Schulz’ art studio was located. It was a great place for all those Peanuts kids to grow up.

Linus tells the audience: “Each year, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the ‘most sincere.’ He’s gotta pick this one. I don’t see how a pumpkin patch can be more sincere than this one. You can look around, and there’s not a sign of hypocrisy. Nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see.”

Pumpkins are a fun fruit. There are hundreds of varieties. Orange is the dominate color for pumpkins, but they also come in shades of tan, white, blue, green and pink. There are tall ones, squatty ones, oblong ones, warty ones…and miniatures.

Lisa Hallett Taylor is a contributor to The Spruce, a food and beverage website. She commented about some of the interesting varieties of pumpkins. Taking center stage are the big, fat, monster, jumbos – the stars of county fairs and festivals – trucked in and hoisted on scales.

“Huge pumpkins are not to be eaten or carved,” she said. “They often lack the flavor of their smaller cousins, and scooping out the pulp can be a chore.”

Alexia Fernández Campbell of The Atlantic magazine interviewed Dr. Mohammad Babadoost, a crop scientist at the University of Illinois, who says the recent “pumpkin spice craze” has created a ton of enthusiasm within the industry.

He stated: “People want pumpkin for bread, pie, wine, ice cream, recreational purposes.” Recreational purposes? He’s referring to the growing popularity of pumpkin patches and farms, Fernández said.

“Pumpkin farms across the country have created lucrative agritourism businesses, and when someone visits one of these farms, it only fuels their love of pumpkins,” she wrote.

Over time, “pumpkin” has become a “term of endearment.” The most recent Valentine’s Day list of favorite lovey-doveyisms, was compiled by Rachel Quin of Collins Dictionaries, based in Glasgow, Scotland.

The top five terms are: “sweetheart, darling, honey bunch, pumpkin and sugar.”

In Carteret County, N.C., you might hear the word pronounced as “punkin.”