Six Things I Bet You Didn’t Know About Pumpkins
1 – One-third of the pumpkins grown in the U.S. end up in a can. About 90% to 95% of the pumpkins that get processed are grown in Illinois.
2 – Pumpkins are completely indigenous to the Western hemisphere. When the Europeans first came over here, they’d never seen pumpkins before. Now, pumpkins are grown on every continent except Antarctica.
3 – Before pumpkin carving became a tradition, people in Ireland would carve faces in TURNIPS to try to keep evil spirits away. When the Irish came to America, they started using pumpkins because they were larger and easier to carve.
4 – Pumpkin seeds that date back 9,000 years have been found in caves in Mexico.
5 – The biggest pumpkin pie ever was baked in Ohio in 2005. It was 12 feet, four inches across, and four inches deep. It weighed 2,020 pounds, and used 900 pounds of pumpkins, 1,860 eggs, and 300 pounds of sugar.
6 – In 1999, a man named Jerry Ayers set a record by carving faces into 2,000 pounds of pumpkins in seven hours and 11 minutes. Each face had eyes, ears, a nose, a mouth, and eyebrows.
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