The Ubiquitous, Mystifying Pumpkin

Felix Salmon wrote something short but enjoyable for New York about the ubiquity of pumpkin. He also took to his own blog to follow up with an interesting chart reminding us that because pumpkin is basically terrible, when you buy something with pumpkin, you are generally buying a dessert or beverage (i.e. something horribly loaded with sugar).

Related note: I went to a beer festival over the weekend, and one of the big selling points was the fact that they had loads of pumpkin-flavored beer. I sampled a few of these brews, and they were all pretty terrible (to me, at least). I like pumpkin pie. I do not care for pumpkin in almost anything else. I believe we are all entitled to like what we like and eat what we want to eat and so on and so forth, but the fall is a very mystifying time for someone who finds most pumpkin-infused things to be lacking in flavor.