Pumpkins and Posterity

Save the seeds

This article appeared in the Centre Daily Times in 2011 and resonates today when we search for the perfect pumpkin with grandkids.

Kirk chooses the perfect pumpkin to carve for a Jack-o-lantern.

This is the season for most of us to be up our orange-stained elbows in pumpkins, scooping out large stringy masses of pulp-covered seeds.  Before starting to carve the jack-o-lantern, it’s wise to get your seeds cleaned and roasted, so you can have something to snack on after all the work is done.

                  Pumpkin seeds are valuable additions to diets, especially children’s that will soon be bombarded by an onslaught of empty calories.  Often discarded, the seeds can contribute protein, iron, magnesium, and potassium to systems ravaged by candy bars and too many sweets.

                  I admit to some personal perplexity about pumpkin seeds.  I remember them as a child, in a red box with a picture on the front of a Native American chief in a full headdress.  They were salty.  In fact, a thick white crust of salt on each concealed a barely perceptible seed.  They seemed the exact opposite of candy.  Indian brand pumpkin seeds are still available online today, a full fifty years after they were introduced.  At natural food stores, I’ve purchased what is labeled “pepitas” and used them to make tasty Mexican sauces.  They were green, had no shells, and were not salty at all.  And I’ve peered into and scraped clean many a pumpkin and found that the seeds within are white and somewhat woody.

                  Will the real pumpkin seed please stand up?