Behold the World's Ugliest Pumpkin!

[Pulsegleaner]

A least I think it's a pumpkin (could be a gourd or a squash I suppose). Courtesy of a local Farmer's Market stand.

 

[thistlebloom]

Definitely ugly. But some people like those warty squash-kins.

 

[so lucky]

Wow, that thing has warts on its warts.

 

[digitS']

Looks like somebody sat on it.

Repeatedly.

Ugly is a good choice for Halloween.

Steve

 

[journey11]

That is one awesomely ugly pumpkin!

 

[Nyboy]

Are you going to eat it, or use for Halloween ?

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Well, it definitely will stay intact until the holidays are over, both Halloween AND Thanksgiving (pumpkins are as much a part of that as they are of the other)* assuming it lasts that long. After that, who knows?

Actually, I rather doubt eating it is in the cards no matter what. With an unknown parentage, it's hard to tell if it is an eating pumpkin. A lot of ornamental gourds and carving pumpkins really aren't all that good to eat, what with the saponin content (anywhere from "slightly poisonous to just "will taste really terrible")

Additionally, based on some places where some of the skin is scraped (on some of the more prominent bumps) it appear that this thing has enough gourd in it's parentage to have a woody shell right under the surface, so there really isn't anything TO eat (except maybe the seeds, and I rather keep those to grow). So I'd say we're looking at a "no" with regards to eating

 

[Carol Dee]

I love it, perfect for Halloween.

 

[Nyboy]

I just had argument Sun, I thought all pumpkins could be made into pie. Guess I was wrong, not the first time.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

No, a lot aren't. That actually includes most of the Halloween carving pumpkins. REAL pie/eating pumpkins tend to be paler orange (if they are orange at all, greens, blue greys whites and yellows are just as common) and flatter. And most canned pumpkin is in fact squash.

That actually results in a funny little fact I learned in my book collecting. I happen to collect Oz books from foreign countries. In the case of some of the Japanese ones, I can help noticing that the Japanese tend to draw Jack Pumpkinhead (second book on) with a much lighter colored and flatter head (occasionally, it's green) after I while I realized why; in Japan, the flatter eating type pumpkin is the only one they are used to! For similar reasons beans will generally be fava beans including the ones Jack climbs (though now that I think of it, Jacks beanstalk would HAVE to in fact be a fava; the story is older than the introduction of common beans to England.) and most of the corn has purple kernels sprinkled around (glutinous corn usually has some purple, even the commercial strains) Now if I could just figure out why they keep drawing Pan as the goat equivalent of a centaur.........