41. My kids are starving, too, but is this event appropriate for my young child? How scary is it?
Blaze is suitable for a general audience. While there are some elements that are spooky, this is not a haunted tour, so there will be no goblins or ghouls jumping out to scare the wits out of the youngsters. Families with young children may want to choose an earlier time slot, when it’s not so dark.

42. All this talk of food has got me ravenous for Pumpkin Pie. You wouldn’t happen to have a killer recipe, would you?
Oh boy, you are going to flip for THIS RECIPE, courtesy of Lavada Nahon, Historic Hudson Valley food historian. It’s based on a historic recipe for “Pompkin Pudding,” which appeared in America’s first cookbook, “American Cookery” by Amelia Simmons, in 1796. A complimentary copy will appear in every shopping bag at The Great Jack O’ Lantern Blaze Shop.

43. That recipe sounds so good, I’m going to use it to make the largest pumpkin pie ever. What record do I have to top?
The largest pumpkin pie ever baked was in 2003 and weighed 418 pounds.

44. I’m on the Atkins, South Beach, Scarsdale, and Grapefruit diets. Should I feel guilty after eating pumpkin pie?
Pumpkins are low in calories, fat, and sodium, and are high in fiber. They are good sources of Vitamin A, Vitamin B, potassium, protein, and iron.

45. Sounds good. To make the biggest pumpkin pie, I’m going to need to grow the biggest pumpkin. Whose record do I have to top?
The largest pumpkin ever grown was 1,337 pounds. It was grown by Charles Houghton of New Boston, New Hampshire.

46. By the way, what’s so historic about a Jack O’ Lantern?
An ancient Irish legend holds that a man named Jack (or in some versions, “Stingy Jack”), too sinful to be admitted to heaven, was also denied entrance to hell. So he carved a turnip, lit it with a candle, and wandered the earth for a resting place. Hence the name “Jack O’ Lantern.” There are many variations of this tale. However, it is believed that the first real meaning of “Jack O’ Lantern,” emerging in the 18th century, was a night watchman.

For many years in Ireland, Scotland, and England, carving lanterns from potatoes or vegetables with hard outer shells was a tradition. These lanterns were thought to ward off evil spirits and visits from “Stingy Jack.”

Washington Irving, in the climax of his famous tale “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” describes the ghost of the Hessian soldier, in the form of the Headless Horseman, in pursuit of Ichabod Crane. At the climax he hurls his detached head at the hapless schoolteacher. The next day, when the villagers investigate, they find a pumpkin, but not a “Jack O’ Lantern” as is often illustrated. The term “Jack O’ Lantern,” meaning specifically a lantern made from a carved vegetable, first appeared in 1837 in a tale by Nathaniel Hawthorne, many years after Irving wrote his famous story.

Neither Irving nor Hawthorne mentioned the Jack O’ Lantern in the context of Halloween. Jack O’ Lanterns had a long-time association with harvest time. However, the association of the Jack O’ Lantern with Halloween occurred much later; there are some references in the late 19th century, but not many. The Halloween Jack O’ Lantern, carved from pumpkins, is largely a 20th-century invention.

Carving the Jack O’ Lantern from pumpkins is thought to have been started by Irish immigrants in America, where the pumpkin was plentiful and ideally suited for carving, certainly more so than turnips, rutabagas and other root vegetables. (The pumpkin, actually a fruit rather than a vegetable, is native to North America and was first discovered by French explorers in the 16th century.) The great wave of Irish immigrants that occurred at mid-century during the Potato Famine popularized the tradition.

Halloween as a holiday developed independently of the Jack O’ Lantern, but that’s another story, Jack.