Where did all of the canned pumpkin go?
We had a recent run-in with a bit of food supply reality when my wife went out in search of some canned pumpkin this fall. In anticipation of making holiday pumpkins pies, she went to a couple of grocery stores to stock up on this vital ingredient for one of my favorite desserts. She was somewhat surprised when she could not find any at the first store. Fortunately for myself and the other pumpkin pie lovers in the family, she went to a second store and got the last can they had. Was this an isolated incident, or was there a pumpkin shortage?
A shortage would be of particular concern in Ohio, which is one of the top producers of pumpkins in the country. Last year, the state’s farmers harvested 1.24 billion pounds of the fruit from 7,500 acres, with a farm value of $22.5 million. Pumpkins (mostly of the jack-o’-lantern type) are the third largest fresh market vegetable crop grown in the state and account for 10 percent to 40 percent of farm markets’ annual gross income in Ohio.
To find out more about a potential pumpkin shortage, I called Linda Ballou, who is in charge of handling the submissions to the Baked Goods Committee for the famous Circleville Pumpkin Show. She had heard the rumor, but saw no evidence of a shortage in the local grocery. I also talked with Dave Renick, who grows a large crop of pumpkins each year, and he said that he has not had a short crop in the last two years.
I also conducted an unofficial online poll and heard from others that there was a shortage but that, at least in central Ohio and in other parts of the country, the shortage was over. Meanwhile, my wife was at a local bakery and the pumpkin conversation came up again. The baker said that their popular pumpkin products were going to be very limited this fall due to a short pumpkin crop. The baker said that if people want pumpkin for pies and other autumn goodies, they are actually going to have buy pumpkins and can it themselves! What?
The idea of people in our society actually coming into contact with the distasteful dirt of the fields and handle something as unseemly as pumpkin innards for something as basic as a pie is hard to fathom. And the seeds, oh the seeds! It is practically like pioneer life.
The next thing you know, housewives in the suburbs will be milking cows and butchering hogs in their backyard.
We are so spoiled by our abundant and diverse food supply that even something as insignificant as a short-lived a pumpkin shortage is hard to fathom. After all, those pumpkin pies just seem to show up on the Thanksgiving table every year along with the mountain of other food we typically enjoy.
This pumpkin debacle will surely not result in a global food disaster (though it may be the ruin of an otherwise ideal Thanksgiving dinner for some), but a limited supply of canned pumpkin in some grocery stores is a subtle reminder that we do live in a world that is sometimes out of our control. Even in our land of plenty, a simple stretch of uncooperative weather can leave us short of the abundant supplies to which we are accustomed.
Since our scare about a lack of pumpkins, I have found little evidence to support a shortage. In fact, I enjoyed part of a delicious pumpkin doughnut while writing this. And, shortage or no shortage, I know that my pumpkin pie supply for Thanksgiving has been secured, a fact that I can add to my long list of things to be thankful for. Unfortunately, I do not know that something as simple and standard as a pumpkin pie has ever made my thankfulness list before. Maybe it should have.