America’s Pumpkin Spice Madness

At 3:14 pm local time, September 24th, the second day of fall, a Michigan woman was found disoriented and barely conscious in the backyard of a rural, countryside home after apparently indulging in too much autumn at one time.

She was found surrounded by pumpkin spice flavored paraphernalia including cookies, Hershey Kisses, candy corn, bread and an empty coffee cup that lab tests are expected to confirm contained a pumpkin spice latte.

She was taken to the hospital and treated for overheating and dehydration caused by wearing riding boots, a sweater, stocking cap and wool scarf on an 80 degree fall day, a common occurrence due to Michigan’s unpredictable weather.

Authorities caution people to ease into fall by consuming pumpkin spice in moderation and dressing appropriately for the weather, even if they can’t wait to wear their new pair of cute boots.

Our local coffee shop chain released their Pumpkin Spice Latte in August to sweaty masses of women, so desperate for fall they donned knee-high boots and leggings, even with the mercury rising well over 80 degrees. Now it’s the end of September, officially fall at last, and pumpkin spice everything is filling grocery store shelves.

Starbucks is to blame for this phenomenon. It began in the fall of 2003 when they introduced their original Pumpkin Spice Latte and changed forever the way we Americans observe the Autumn season. Initial sales exceeded Starbuck’s expectations. People went crazy for the flavored coffee drink that invokes apple picking, cozy sweatshirts and fiery red foliage. If fall’s crisp air had a flavor, it would taste like pumpkin spice. More than just a drink, pumpkin spice is a lifestyle. It’s uniform is a cable knit sweater with boots and leggings. Its initiation ritual is a donut and apple cider ceremony around a bonfire.

The pumpkin spice craze grew, and now almost any place that sells coffee has their own version of a pumpkin spice flavored coffee drink. But it doesn’t stop at coffee. Every autumn, major food manufacturers roll out their flagship products in limited edition pumpkin spice flavors. You can find everything from teas and beer to yogurt and candy flavored with the prolific spice.

Pumpkin spice hoaxes even circulate on social media causing Snopes.com to debunk myths, such as the existence of pumpkin spice flavored condoms and scented tampons. Bath and Body Works does, however, offer a line of body care products scented with the fall seasoning. If you slather yourself with it, don’t be surprised if throngs of young women wearing oversized scarves and leg warmers start following you down the sidewalk.

There is no actual pumpkin in pumpkin spice. Pumpkins don’t grow in fields giving off a warm, cinnamon-y scent. Actually called pumpkin pie spice, it was, as the name suggests, made to flavor pumpkin pies. The combination of nutmeg, cloves, ginger, allspice and cinnamon is a product of American ingenuity. A baking convenience food designed to save people the extra steps of measuring out each individual spice. Those spices have been added to pumpkin pie as long as pumpkin pie existed here, because without sweetener and seasoning, pumpkin is as bland as baby food.

Pumpkins became a part of the American story, because they were easy for colonists to grow and store all winter. Originally the pie was baked by scraping the seeds out of a pumpkin, placing spices and apples inside it, then baking it on the hearth. Eventually it evolved into the custard-like pastry we eat today.

Pumpkins rose from a lowly position to becomes the romanticized fall staples they are today. Sorority girls, who carry pumpkin spice lattes around like they’re Lilly Pulitzer designer accessories, would have once turned up their noses at the pumpkin. They were long ago considered poor people’s food, eaten by the lower classses. Calling Peter a Pumpkin Eater in the famed nursery rhyme was a rude insult, suggesting that he was the poorest of the poor. Now the giant, orange squash is a symbol of bountiful harvests and storybook autumns spent frolicking on hayrides and in corn mazes.

Memories are closely associated with smells. A scent can take us back to a moment in time years ago. Which is probably why we’re all so crazy for pumpkin spice. Many of us have pleasant memories of being at home in a cozy kitchen on a cold November day while Mom or Grandma baked a pumpkin pie. The iconic pie was the dessert centerpiece at family Thanksgiving dinners where we sat at the kids’ table laughing with our cousins. Also representing the fall harvest and America’s Heartland, maybe our affection for the Pumpkin Spice Latte is a longing to revisit our agricultural roots even as we become more urban.

We wonder at ancient peoples who once worshiped the sun and held ceremonies on the autumnal equinox. A thousand years from now future generations will wonder at our strange ceremonial autumn drink in an insulated paper cup.