happy halloween...

...from both of us on francofile!

 We carved a potimarron for Halloween–gave him a little owl face. (More of this over at our flickr.) We also gave me a cat face...

and Joe a really sweet smile.

Now, I mention that we carved a potimarron to illustrate something: In France, pumpkins are more complicated. We know this, because I've explained potimarrons before (here & here). But what is the difference between a citrouille (meaning "pumpkin") and a potiron (meaning, more specifically, "pumpkin")? What do you mean you can't tell the difference?

I'm not going to get into how much of my time has been spent scanning Google's image pages for a solid source to figure out this mystery. These are obviously two different members of the squash family. We can all agree on that part. Based on my reading of scattered photo captions and the French Wikipedia pages (please, no judgment for frequenting Wikipedia), I think I've come to a conclusion.

Despite the confusing pictures on their Wikipedia pages, which actually have POTIMARRONS thrown in, I've been able to put together that, while the words are mostly synonyms, there are a few differences. The right is a citrouille (photo credit). The left is a potiron (photo credit). I can stop here. This explains everything.

The potiron is rather flat, while the citrouille is more round and more, well, orange. According to Wikipedia, we Americans carve citrouille; I would agree. When it comes to growing, their stems are rather similar with the exception that the potiron stem is a bit spongier. 

The interior of these two happy gourds is different as well.  We don't usually eat the pumpkins we carve, & there's a solid reason for it. The potiron has sweeter, less stringy flesh–more to carve away for making that beautiful orange filling. Our jack-o-lanterns are great for seeds, but tend to be a stringier mess with a bit dirtier flavor.

I've no doubt fascinated you–or at least had you looking at your jack-o-lantern in a more cannibalistic way. Thanksgiving is coming soon, so my dad has no doubt been itching to make a pumpkin pie already. I hope this post made the craving worse... If it hasn't feel free to roam the seemingly endless list of pumpkin varieties on this web site.

Happy Halloween & tons of love to all! What better way to celebrate than with the Great Pumpkin? Be sure your watching with you own eyes.