By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, October 26, 2006 in The Washington Post

A big red pumpkin sits on my kitchen counter, the color of the sun when it is just about to set. It lights up the whole room. About 15 inches across, with a flattened shape, its name is Rouge Vif d'Etampes, a French heirloom introduced by Burpee in 1883. I will be enjoying it long after Halloween, but right now it is part of the celebration.

What we now call Halloween was once a great pagan holiday, a Celtic harvest festival called Samhain. Although later transformed by the church and renamed All Hallows Eve, it never really lost its foothold in the pre-Christian spirit world. Falling midway between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice, Samhain was one of two times during the year (Beltane on May 1 being the other) when the border between the corporeal and spiritual realms became permeable. The souls of the dead were welcomed, and bonfires were lighted to ward off the Sidhe -- the mischievous denizens of Faerie.

Halloween still has a bit of magic. It's a time when children are given license to be strange and scary, to wander around at night and eat normally forbidden sweets. But it has become a thoroughly American rite, with customs widely copied in Europe and beyond. Trick-or-treating, dressing up and carving pumpkins are essentially New World touches -- that and our knack for turning anything into an industry. How much self-expression is there in donning a SpongeBob SquarePants suit? Is there anything scary about masks with the faces of leading politicians? Well, okay, maybe.

To read the full article at washingtonpost.com, go here

Some pumpkin recipes worth exploring:
SILKY-COCONUT PUMPKIN SOUP (KEG BOUAD MAK FAK KHAM)
PUMPKIN CANNELLONI WITH CLAMS AND SAGE BROWN BUTTER
PUMPKIN COOKED IN RAW SUGAR