Sundays are my to do days, I often feel inspired and ready to get stuff done. This morning has started differently as we have woken up to an empty fridge with a couple of sweet potatoes, some tinned goods and a small pumpkin left, which does not leave too much of imagination for breakfast this morning. I have therefore prepared my morning tea and have decided to write this blog before we head out to our little farmers market in Brighton. Shall I take a coffee on the go?
The little pumpkin in my fridge reminds me that Halloween is coming and I can notice more and more people decorating their front porch with huge amounts of pumpkins, colourful autumnal leaves and a few deadly, but thank goodness, plastic spiders, which I do not intend to add to my office decorations for anyone asking. You see, as a child my mother thought it would be a good idea to let me watch multiple horror movies involving massive black meaty spiders on the killing spree. I still have troubles sleeping.
Going back to the pumpkins, no one has ever explained why are pumpkins a thing on Halloween, so I did some googling and wanted to share. Apparently, The Irish had come up with a myth about a guy named Stingy Jack, a witty alcoholic, who tricked the Devil a couple of times who then got his revenge by not allowing poor Jack into the hell (after being rejected by the God itself) and sending him out into the night with only a coal lighting up his way. That’s a sad way to end, but teaches you a valuable lesson not to mess with people and reduce your booze intake.
Pumpkins also inspired me to dive in the research done back home in Latvia by “BIOR scientific institution starring pumpkins, courgettes and sweet potatoes to find out the nutritional value of the named veg. In conclusion, sweet potatoes and courgettes were a definite winner when comparing iron levels, leaving pumpkin in its third place. Pumpkin also lost in the battle for calcium levels. To make things worse, it did not even come close to the necessary potassium intake, giving the first place to the sweet potato.
Now, it’s not all sad and grey for our spooky October veg. It has been proven to be an amazing vitamin A, B6 and magnesium provider and is definitely a star of this month and our front porches!
P.S Have an amazing Halloween weekend everyone! Give us a call if you are feeling like Stingy Jack and cannot find your way out of the dark, stiff and achy world. Save your coal for Christmas!