Within walking distance from my house, there is an organic foods supermarket called Central Market. These orange pumpkins in a very large bin by the front door caught my eye on account of the name: Wolf Pumpkin.
Because my father was Hans Hermann Karl Wulf, I have always been drawn to wolves or wülves of any kind, seeking clues about my heritage in the same way that other people search for their ancestors in genealogical charts.
These wolf pumpkins look very much like the pumpkins I remember as a child, with ribbed sides and sturdy handles and that very solid Halloween-orange color.
Since my childhood, however, a huge variety of pumpkins have come upon the market with names like Phat Jack, Conestoga, Hannibal, Warlock, Gargoyle, and Knucklehead.
The first ones I remember seeing a number of years ago that weren't the typical round orange pumpkins were the Cinderella and the Fairytale varieties.
The Cinderella pumpkin is a vivid red-orange with mottled dark spots that make it seem all aglow, like a magnificent fiery ember. It is a large pumpkin with a much flatter shape than the wolf pumpkin above. I find it quite easy to imagine it as the resplendent carriage that takes Cinderella to the ball.
This pumpkin was apparently cultivated in France and is a French heirloom pumpkin called a "Rouge Vif d'Etampes." One source says this particular variety was brought to the United States in 1883. Perhaps "returned" would be the better word, however, since the origin of the pumpkin itself is believed to be North America.
The ancestry of all the many pumpkins available today might make for interesting reading ~I picture seed packets crossing back and forth across the oceans and being delivered to greenhouses at midnight for cross-pollination behind closed doors. Spies and secret agents included. Very top secret and hush-hush!
The Fairytale pumpkin is harder for me understand how it came by its name. It is a pale brown, almost mushroom-colored. Perhaps that is the fairy tale connection: mushrooms, toadstools, fairies-in-the-woods. A couple of websites called the color "buckskin," and one used the word "mahogany," but I see it more as a mother-of-pearl brown.
Perhaps its burnished-brown color seems more coach-like, and therefore more likely to be the pumpkin chosen for Cinderella's coach.
(My photo picks up too much orange. These pumpkins really are not orange.)
This is my pumpkin for this year. It is about the size of a grapefruit and very smooth. I bought it because of the handle, which looks curiously equine to me. I'm calling this a Horse-Handle pumpkin.
I love this season ~ it is my very favorite time of the year. And the pumpkin seems to be a very big part of what we all tend to love about October and November: jack-o'-lanterns and pumpkin pies!
There is something wonderful about the labyrinthine tangle of vines that makes the pumpkin. I have tried to grow pumpkins myself and have not ~ yet ~ been successful, but I would love someday for our whole side yard to be a pumpkin patch. It's on my great-pie-in-the-sky-to-do-list!
(I want the side yard to be a woods, too, so I will have to figure out I can have both the woods and the pumpkin patch.)
.
