I have to agree with your assessment!

No comparison between bacon and pumpkin, but a bacon topped pumpkin pie might not be too bad.

I think we'll have bipartisan support in congress in agreeing that NOTHING can beat bacon. And that's saying something.

But Dear Uncle Eddie, if one makes Pumpkin soup and tops it with a dollop of Sour Cream and Bacon bits......IRRESISTIBLE!

Oh, Uncle Eddie! I was about to say something very similar.

While I can take no exception to the article in general, my stomach turned at the title for the piece and the internal comments that "Pumpkin is the new bacon".

Pumpkin is the new pumpkin
Bacon is the new bacon.

There was nothing wrong with the old bacon and/or pumpkin so why do we need a new one? (and, btw, the same goes for the black/pink farce a couple of years ago - there was nothing wrong with the old black so why should pink be the new one?)

While I cannot imagine strips of pumpkin with my eggs in the morning it might actually be tasty (especially if fried in a dollop of bacon grease). And although I've never tasted bacon soup or pie or pudding, I don't doubt someone will try to create it, if they haven't already.

The whole concept of "This is the new That" suggests there was something wrong with the old That. Generally in declarations such as this, that is not the case. Like the wife who absolutely adores everything about you. She looks twelve years younger than her years, is great in bed, cooks like Julia Child, doesn't complain when you want to spend the evening watching football or hockey with your buds. She has a genuine interest in your favorite sport, knows the plays, the terminology, and difference between a slam-dunk and a slapshot. And even cooks food for the gang when they come over. The old wife is, in short, perfect. Why would you need a new one?

Or the hubby who brings you flowers every night, helps with the housekeeping, doesn't leave his dirty clothes all over the bedroom or bathroom. He is always considerate of your feelings, gives you little gifts, takes you out to dinner, and plans surprise weekend getaways - "just because". He has never cheated on you and, when he looks at other women on the street, his comments are to compare her poorly to you because he thinks you are the most perfect woman in the world. If the "old" hubby is so great, why on Earth would you even consider a new one???

Same goes for pumpkins and bacon and anything else. Pumpkin is the perfect pumpkin, we don't need a new one! Bacon is the perfect bacon, why should we exchange it for a different one?

Journalists! Sheesh, get a brain or get a new hobby!

@Uncle Eddie

The "new bacon?!"

I believe the implication was that you can now, like bacon, find pumpkin in anything and everything not that it was somehow superior or even equal. No one could be fooish enough to believe that.

Pumpkin freezes well. If you peel it and cook it in chunks in lightly salted water like potatoes, then put it into freezer bags or other containers, you can use it whenever you need it. It's a lot of work, but one benefit is that pies will be very moist. A sneaky way to cook pumpkin with no mess or fuss is to cut it in half, scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff, (you can roast the cleaned seeds later) and put each pumpkin half cut side down on a cookie sheet, then bake it like acorn squash. (Refer to an acorn squash recipe for particulars.) You can save and freeze the pulp either way. You could also consider getting together with a few friends and share pumpkin along with the recipes you each like. BTW, try it in chili -- you can even "stretch" canned chili that way if you have unexpected but hungry visitors.

Make the pot , mmm just the smell is heaven. See if you have a Senior Center in your area where you could share it.

So, buy a small pumpkin, cook up the whole thing, put the extra in portion sized plastic bags and toss them in your freezer. They won't take up much room and they defrost easily for future cooking.

Any grocery store have Calabasa pumpkins cut any size you like. They are good for soup or pie or just baked.

Jean Redman

Grocery stores here could learn a lesson from this, they could sell a whole lot of Pumpkin for cooking if they would at least half the pumpkins.

Most pumpkins sold in stores are meant to be carved into jack-o-lanterns but I have seen G stores and even Wal-Mart start to stock sugar pumpkins. They are small and an average sized one is perfect for a pie or batch of pumpkin bread or muffins. Yum. I'll be bringing in my pumpkins from the garden today and tonight my house will smell wonderful!

Backcountry is right. The "pie pumpkin" is pretty much grown to make one or two pumpkin pies. They are sweeter than the bigger pumpkins that are sold for carving. Many of them at some stores even come with the recipe on a sticker on the pumpkin. Canned pumpkin is available all year long. But there is just something about having it in the fall. It is kind of like a lot of things. Strawberries, peaches, tomatos, etc. When fresh they can't be beat and having them for a limited time is what makes them special. Pumpkin may not be the new bacon, but it sure is for this time of year. Now through the New Year holiday, pumpkin is a staple. Pie, cream cheese rollup, cake, cookies, lattes, coffee, soup....the list is endless and ALL of it good!!

And it is LOADED with vitamins and good for you too.

OH BLASPHEMY Kathy! A little Bacon? That's like a little joy, a smidgen of happiness. My favorite quote: I will be a vegetarian when Bacon grows on trees.

Not really meaning to diss bacon. Fear not! I meant to say there's no downside to pumpkin, so the two aren't comparable. My husband and I ate bacon more often when we were younger, and before we found out about the "double whammy." Besides the fat even crisy, well-drained and blotted bacon has (yumm to the bacon flavor, uh-oh to the fat), there's the nitrates. We found nitrate-free bacon recently, so we get our little quota of "joy" from time to time in spite of residual guilt. We aren't vegetarians by any means. We have just adjusted our diets as we have gotten older, so meat-wise we eat more turkey -- and even buffalo! The local Silver Diner has gone organic and uses locally grown products (smaller carbon footprint or whatever, not to mention fresher and better tasting). There's a place called Gunpowder Farms in MD, within easy driving distance of us, that raises buffalo. Had some buffalo this AM ground up and served as part of a spicy huevos rancheros dish, in fact. Grass-fed buffalo is even better for you than grass-fed beef (hard to get), and we like it.

But, Mo, pumpkin doesn't cause your cholesteral to elevate and won't raise your blood pressure. So, if you care about your health and your family, enjoy your bacon lustily, just not tons of it every morning. Nothing wrong with immersing yourself in the things you love but remember this, although water is essential to life, too much of it will kill you. The same goes for just about anything else you can think of ... including bacon. (pumpkin, too, undoubtedly, but I don't think anyone has yet figured out how much pumpkin constitutes too much.)

To Kathy @ #5.2: Just as an aside, I noticed my local Kroger store has bison in the meat cabinets. If more people discover it, it might become more available and more affordable. (After all, our ancestors thrived on it as a dietary staple, didn't they?)

Kathy-451584

Pumpkin in chili? Hmmm, I might have to try that. I have heard that you can use a can of pumpkin in place of the oil in a chocolate cake mix with the result being very brownie like

Well, I hope they don't ruin it with grain lot feeding, genetic enhancement, inbreeding, hormones, antibiotics, and all the other inherently bad practices associated with mass production of food animals. We find meat to be more affordable by using it more for flavor and stretching recipes with among other things, pumpkin! (Those of us who have Native American ancestry weren't strict meat eaters by any means, you know.) We personally use a lot more beans than we used to. (We recommend "Beano" to help avoid excessive backfire). Tomatoes, squash, pumpkin, onions, garlic and various other veggies are staples in our diet, along with fish and even the occasional helping of peanut butter as well as other nuts. (There's a nice version of peanut butter called "Fifty-50" which we like on whole grain bread.) A well-balanced diet in sensible portions has kept a number of my relatives hale and hearty well into old age. I'm talking high 90s to a famly record of not-quite 114. The latter was teaching senior citizen aerobics until 111.

About the other uses of pumpkin: Yes, it does work in chili, but as to brownies, I prefer using unsweetened apple sauce as a substitute for oil. That works very well, and in cookies, too. Of course, nowadays our idea of dessert isn't brownies or cookies. There's a little dish I created that uses vanilla yoghurt or unsweetened yoghurt that we add vanilla Torani syrup to. (If you have no objections to Splenda, Torani has vanilla syrup made w/ Splenda too.) However one does it, we throw in a variety of freshly washed berries, apple slices (carefully coated with the yoghurt so it doesn't brown), and cherries until we can't get any more fruit in there and still coat everything. We make a pretty big batch (non-fat yoghurt works, BTW), and it keeps in a glass dish with a glass top for well over a week when we make it for our own use. Makes a nice dish for various social events when you're supposed to bring something.

It wouldn't be cost effective as ethanol, but you're right; it shouldn't be allowed to rot. Frankly, I don't think even corn not intended for human consumption should have been used for ethanol, either. Sugar cane grows faster and can be turned into ethanol with fewer steps and less energy used in processing, I've been told. BTW, you can display your pumpkin with a face drawn or glued onto it instead carved into it, then you can cook it later. Some pumpkins are supposedly better for eating purposes, but it depends on the recipe as to whether that really matters all that much. I wouldn't waste money on a pumpkin I couldn't eat. I don't display pumpkins where they can be vandalized or stolen, either. Windows, if they are't too sunny, work just fine. I also have a plastic jack o'lantern someone gave me as a joke 20 or so years ago, and I put it on my porch with an old broom and whatever silly sign I've thought of for that year. To me, real pumpkins are food and shouldn't be wasted.

I love pumpkin bread and pie, but usually use Libby's canned (I have cooked pumpkin from scratch, but it really didn't taste different to me than that canned).

That's an idea - make pumpkin to add to fuel, only Monsanto would then sell GMO altered pumpkin seeds!! GMO anything is very scary, especially the new GMO seeds that they are trying to get approval on - weeds are becoming resistant to Round Up, so the new is 1/2 the ingredient for Agent Orange!

Our local zoo has a collection of uncut Halloween/Thanksgiving ornamental pumpkins. They feed them to the animals. Great way to cut costs of zoo maintenance and gives people a way to recycle along with a free pass for a visit to the zoo.

Check with your own local zoo and see if they might have such a program. Like Kathy said, "... pumpkins are food and shouldn't be wasted".

You should try one of my pies. I double all the spices, yummy

I make a pumpkin creme brulee that is to die for! :) My friends also like my pumpkin pie. Yum! I was happy to see pumpkins are very drought resistant - they were the only fruit that grew in my garden this year. Global warming friendly. LOL

Absolutely! It fits right in with the zucchini(or makes a good substitute), avocado, and bell peppers, in my Southwestern Omelette.