Pumpkins as Monster Protection: A Halloween Fruit Story

If you read last week’s blog post, I’m sure you couldn’t WAIT to see how my Halloween costume turned out. Hopefully, it doesn’t disappoint. I’m proud to say that a group of teens recognized me as a One Piece character while I was out trick-or-treating with my kids (“OMG that’s Zoro!”), so that was a total win.

When the teenagers flattered me by recognizing my outfit, my family and I were standing in front of a large gated house in San Francisco. The house was decked out with all of the best Halloween accouterments, including an animatronic clown.

We walked through the gate and our four-year-old son stopped dead in his tracks in front of it. His eyes went wide. Then he turned to look up at my wife and said, “Mommy, get me the #$%!* out of here!”

I totally get my son’s reaction—clowns can be scary! My wife talked him through his fear and helped him collect his Halloween treat, but I wonder if he would have been less fearful in the first place if he’d had a turnip lantern for company.

The Original Halloween Jack-o’-Lanterns

As I just learned this Halloween, carrying a carved turnip with a candle inside used to be a common practice in Ireland to ward off ghosts and monsters. As you probably know, Halloween evolved from the Celtic celebration of Samhain (meaning “summer’s end”). Like many holidays of old, it centered around the change of seasons, and it was also seen as a time when spirits could travel between the worlds of the living and the dead.

In the 1800s and 1900s, the Celts carved lanterns out of vegetables like turnips, potatoes, and radishes to protect themselves from the evil spirits they believed could surface on Samhain.

Spooky Pumpkins & Monster Protection

Those carved vegetables actually gave us our modern Halloween fruit tradition of carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns. Instead of carving turnips, we’ve swapped in pumpkins—which are fruits, by the way.

Although my family doesn’t usually carry our jack-o’-lanterns around for protection on Halloween, maybe we should try it in the future. It would be a fun nod to an ancient tradition, and it just might save us from scary clowns, too.

To learn about more spooky fruits and veggies, check out our blog post 10 Spooky & Healthy Halloween Snacks for School.