October 22, 2011 - Gourd Hoard

Fall is orange.  Pumpkins upon pumpkins await their fate outside of a Mill Creek Market.  In the 1800s the potato famine in Ireland drove hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants to America.  They brought with them the custom of hollowing out turnips for use as lanterns to remember the souls trapped in purgatory.  The pumpkin, native to North America, was larger and easier to carve out.  While generally associated with harvest time, it wasn't until the mid-to-late 1800s that jack o'lanterns became associated specifically with the holiday we now know as Halloween.  In medieval times the poor would go door-to-door begging for food on Hallowmas, November 1st.  In return for food, one would receive prayers for the dead on All Souls' Day, November 2nd.