What’s really in that can of pumpkin

Unlike the pumpkin in Disney’s classic tale Cinderella, the contents of the cans of pumpkins in your pantry will not transform into a coach to carry you to the ball. Some people even claim that what’s in the can isn’t pumpkin at all, it’s squash. Food writer Kimberly Holland wants to set the record straight, and says that the substance in canned pumpkin is, indeed, pumpkin – but there’s an asterisk next to that claim.

Most pumpkin is made from the same variety of pumpkin, named Dickinson. These are lighter-colored and more oblong than the type people associate with the name pumpkin, which are round and bright orange, like those carved into jack-o-lanterns at Halloween. Libby’s, which is the largest canned pumpkin producer on the planet, grows its own special strain of Dickinson pumpkin called Libby’s Special Seed. There are some people who posit that the Dickinson pumpkin – and therefore the Libby’s variety as well – is actually a squash. This is where the asterisk comes in.

Dickinson pumpkins resemble and are related to butternut squash, while orange field pumpkins are listed under another species name. However, there is no distinct botanical definition between pumpkins and squash. Some fruits in Cucurbita moschata family are listed as pumpkins (like Dickinson) while some are listed as squash. The orange jack-o-lantern type of pumpkin is Curcurbita pepo. Both are part of the same family and most botanists would say that all pumpkins are technically a type of squash because of that. My take: don’t let semantics ruin a great Thanksgiving dessert.