Why do we carve pumpkins at Halloween?
You may have assumed carving vegetables for Halloween started in the US. I did! But I was wrong…
The carved pumpkin, or the ‘jack-o’-lantern’ is British in origin and dates back to the 17th century, when it literally meant ‘man with a lantern’.
‘By the late 1800s, people were applying the name “jack-o’-lantern” to a homemade object more commonly known before that as a “turnip lantern,” described by Thomas Darlington in his 1887 volume The Folk-Speech of South Cheshire as “a lantern made by scooping out the inside of a turnip, carving the shell into a rude representation of the human face, and placing a lighted candle inside it.”
On both Hallowmas (All Saints Day, Nov. 1) and All Souls Day (Nov. 2), Catholic children would carry turnip lanterns while begging door-to-door for soul cakes to commemorate the dead.
Turnip lanterns were also carried by celebrants parading the streets on Nov. 5, Guy Fawkes Day.’ Source
Traditionally Britain and Ireland would carve lanterns from vegetables, particularly the turnip or swede. It wasn’t until Irish immigrants brought the custom of carving jack-o’-lanterns to North America that the more commonly available (and easier to carve) pumpkin came to be used for that purpose, and not until the mid-to-late 19th century that pumpkin carving was an established Halloween tradition.
Where should you buy your Halloween pumpkin?
From one of our members of course! So who is growing wonderful Welsh pumpkins?
Take a look here for some inspiration…