Like much of the kitsch of modern Halloween, pumpkins are an American import. But the tradition of carving faces into hollowed-out turnips and swedes – perhaps I should say neeps – is rather more local. Jack O'Lanterns may have their origins in the myth of Stingy Jack, a thief denied entry to heaven who engineered a pact with the devil to spare his soul from hell. His fate was to roam the earth forever with only a hot coal from hell to light his way. He placed this in a carved-out turnip and became known as Jack of the Lantern.
At the Celtic festival of Samhain, turnips would be hollowed out and lit from within to ward off evil spirits. Scottish and Irish immigrants brought the story and the tradition to America, where it was co-opted into the muddled myths and commercialisation of the season.
The pumpkins and squashes of North America are easier to hollow out than swedes and turnips, and just under half of all Americans now carve a pumpkin every year. (The best carvers, like Ray Villafane of Surprise, Arizona, create works of astonishing complexity and beauty.)
I'd never carved a pumpkin until this week. I found a good teacher in Claudio, in-store artist at Whole Foods in Kensington, west London. Among his other creative duties, Claudio has responsibility for carving Halloween pumpkins for this American chain. He showed me how to make a spider, the simplest design he could find. Claudio did much of the right-hand side and I the left: the difference is clear, I think, in the final creature's contorted and asymmetrical appearance. We've turned it into a step by step guide in this gallery here. Take a look and share pictures of your own efforts.
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