Update on the farm: Halloween Edition

I’ve been working on the farm for four weeks now and we’ve harvested everything from potatoes and pumpkins to squashes and carrots! I’ve learned lots about the food we’ve picked and even gotten to take home and eat some of it. Sometimes we get to take the “seconds.” A “second” is a vegetable or fruit that is deformed, disfeatured, or damaged. It’s a carrot that has four legs or a potato that severed in two or a pumpkin that lost its stem. It’s simply a piece of food “too ugly” to put into the share box. As consumers, we are so conditioned to avoid food that looks bumped or bruised. But, the truth of the matter is that these “ugly seconds” are only ugly on the outside…they are perfectly fine on the inside!! The most beautiful thing of them all is that we get to take them home and eat them! 

Three weeks ago I got to take home some carrots. Before the farm, I—like most of us—would have never eaten a three-legged purple carrot. However, over the past four weeks, I’ve come to learn that a three-legged purple carrot is just as tasty (if not even more) than a store-brand baby carrot.

Two weeks ago I go to take home a pumpkin. The pumpkin was indented on one side and scratched on the other. Harvesting almost 300 pumpkins (and having to leave thirty of them behind to “seconds”), I learned a couple things. One, I learned that you have to be careful cutting them off their vine so the stems aren’t too short. Two, I learned that you have to be very cautious placing them in the crate. And three, I learned the story of the jack-o-lantern!! (I named my pumpkin "Stingy Jack the Second!")

THE LEGEND OF “STINGY JACK”

(http://www.history.com/topics/halloween/jack-olantern-history)

There once was an Irish man nicknamed “Stingy Jack.” One day Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree’s bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years.

Soon after, Jack died. As the legend goes, God would not allow such an unsavory figure into heaven. The Devil, upset by the trick Jack had played on him and keeping his word not to claim his soul, would not allow Jack into hell. He sent Jack off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has been roaming the Earth with ever since. The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as “Jack of the Lantern,” and then, simply “Jack O’Lantern.”

In Ireland and Scotland, people began to make their own versions of Jack’s lanterns by carving scary faces into turnips or potatoes and placing them into windows or near doors to frighten away Stingy Jack and other wandering evil spirits. In England, large beets are used. Immigrants from these countries brought the jack o’lantern tradition with them when they came to the United States. They soon found that pumpkins, a fruit native to America, make perfect jack-o’-lanterns.