The Safety Harbor people ate fish, shellfish, deer, turtles and dogs, as well as watercress, pumpkins, "cabbage" from palmettos or cabbage palms, and beans.

"One reason is that were I to eat pumpkins I would become a cannibal, and the other reason is that I never eat, not being hollow inside."

"Do Winged Monkeys ever eat pumpkins?"

"I hope you are not fond of eating pumpkins."

She accuses me of eating "hundreds of pumpkins, all the time," when I eat fewer pumpkins than she does.

Last summer, they ate pumpkins and cucumbers, following following a summer in which they had judged carrots and tomatoes.

On Long Island, Mrs. Friedberg points out, you not only eat pumpkins, but you can pick pumpkins and decorate with pumpkins.

But it does seem a nonsense, in the days of spiralling food prices, not to eat pumpkins.

"It said the Pilgrims ate turkeys and squash and pumpkins and corn," Mr. Dorris said, "and then parenthetically, 'the Indians never had such a feast.' "

The vegetable is often some sort of pumpkin, varieties of which are indigenous to South Africa, although now many people eat pumpkins that originated in other countries.