Halloween provides a great excuse for family and friends to get together, eat together and have fun, especially the children. Many people eat a traditional pumpkin pie on Halloween and that's fine but how about a special Halloween Ice Cream? If you use pumpkin in any of your cooking, just save some (about 12oz or 300g), cook it and use it (mashed) along with some maple syrup in this great Halloween Ice Cream recipe.There seems to be an automatic association of pumpkin with Halloween but do you know why that is? I didn't until recently. Apparently, the tradition of hollowing out a pumpkin as a lantern at Halloween is an old Celtic custom, brought to the USA by Irish immigrants and 31 October is the New Year of the traditional Celtic calendar.
Also what do you and your children actually know about the pumpkin itself? I had always thought of pumpkin as a vegetable but I was wrong! Its botanical classification is actually that of a fruit; maybe that's why it works so well as a dessert when you come to think of it. Pumpkin is also the state fruit of New Hampshire and in Keene New Hampshire there's a Pumpkinfest every October - this year it's October 20. To read more visit the Pumpkinfest link (Wikipedia).