Pumpkin
[1][2] The term is most commonly applied to round, orange-colored squash varieties, but does not possess a scientific definition.
Wild species of Cucurbita and the earliest domesticated species are native to North America (parts of present-day northeastern Mexico and the southern United States), but cultivars are now grown globally for culinary, decorative, and other culturally-specific purposes.
[6][7] Under this theory, the term transitioned through the Latin word peponem and the Middle French word pompon to the Early Modern English pompion, which was changed to pumpkin by 17th-century English colonists, shortly after encountering pumpkins upon their arrival in what is now the northeastern United States.
[18] The oldest evidence of Cucurbita pepo are pumpkin fragments found in Mexico that are dated between 7,000 and 5,500 BC.
[19] Pumpkins and other squash species, alongside maize and beans, feature in the Three Sisters method of companion planting practiced by many North American indigenous societies.
In 2022, world production of pumpkins (including squash and gourds) was 23 million tonnes, with China accounting for 32% of the total.
[26] As one of the most popular crops in the United States, in 2017 over 680 million kilograms (1.5 billion pounds) of pumpkins were produced.
[29] Nestlé, operating under the brand name Libby's, produces 85 percent of the processed pumpkin in the United States at their plant in Morton, Illinois.
Most parts of the pumpkin plant are edible, including the fleshy shell, the seeds, the leaves, and the flowers.
[40] In the southwestern United States and Mexico, pumpkin and squash flowers are a popular and widely available food item.
Pumpkin leaves are also eaten in Zambia, where they are called chibwabwa and are boiled and cooked with groundnut paste as a side dish.
They are about 1.5 cm (0.5 in) long, flat, asymmetrically oval, light green in color and usually covered by a white husk, although some pumpkin varieties produce seeds without them.
Pumpkin seeds are a popular snack that can be found hulled or semi-hulled at grocery stores.
Per ounce serving, pumpkin seeds are a good source of protein, magnesium, copper and zinc.
[47] In the United States, the carved pumpkin was first associated with the harvest season in general, long before it became an emblem of Halloween.
[48] The practice of carving produce for Halloween originated from an Irish myth about a man named "Stingy Jack".
[61][qualify evidence] In Germany and southeastern Europe, seeds of C. pepo were also used as folk remedies to treat irritable bladder and benign prostatic hyperplasia.
[62][63][qualify evidence] In China, C. moschata seeds were also used in traditional Chinese medicine for the treatment of the parasitic disease schistosomiasis[64] and for the expulsion of tape worms.
