As you may have gathered from my last post about fall, it's a season that I love. One of my favorite fall traditions is carving pumpkins even though I'm not very good at it. I usually settle for creating whimsical swirls because I have no talent for drawing or carving whatsoever, even if I use a stencil. But have you ever wondered why we carve pumpkins? Well stay tuned because I did the research for you.
History of Pumpkin Carving
All my sources cited the old Irish tale of "Stingy Jack." That's right Jack, as in Jack-O-Lantern. The Jack of legend was a disreputable man who upon death was barred from entering either Heaven or Hell and was left to wander Purgatory as a lost spirit. His only possession was a carved out turnip with a lump of coal inside to light his way. Irish families would carve scary faces into their turnips and place them in their windows or at their doors to scare away Jack's spirit. Mischievous young men would take their carved turnips into the woods to scare unsuspecting night travelers. Potatoes and beets were also popular foods used for carving. When Irish immigrants began to settle in America they brought this tradition with them. It wasn't long before they discovered that the native pumpkin was perfect for carving. In the mid-to-late 1900's pumpkin carving became a well established Halloween tradition through out the United States.
Pumpkin Carving Today
Just last week a city in Michigan set an (unofficial) World Record for the most people carving pumpkins simultaneously. 1,064 people showed up in Marine City to create their own carvings and now the pumpkins are on display. This isn't the cities first time setting a world record, you can view the whole story in the Detroit Free Press. According to the Guinness World Records Organization the largest pumpkin to ever be carved weighed over 1,800 pounds! It was carved in 2010 and so far no one else has topped it.
If you want "The Ultimate Pumpkin Experience" you'll need to plan a trip to West Virginia to see the pumpkin house decorated with 3,000 hand carved pumpkins! It's a community wide celebration that brings in around 30,000 visitors a year.
Information was gathered from the following sites:
http://www.history.com/topics/halloween/jack-olantern-history
https://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/holidays-halloween/why-carve-pumpkins.htm
https://www.thoughtco.com/why-do-we-carve-pumpkins-on-halloween-3299443
http://www.freep.com/story/news/columnists/rochelle-riley/2017/10/08/riley-how-many-pumpkins-do-you-have-carve-set-world-record-ask-marine-city/744539001/
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-jack-olantern/
http://www.ckautumnfest.com/
You will also find these hyperlinked to statements in my post.
