Emeril of the Pumpkin World

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Pumpkin donuts!

Nothing I saw at the Pumpkin Festival - not even the 1,500-pound vegetable that looked like the corpse of Linus’ Great Pumpkin - impressed me more than the revelation of making donuts from pumpkins.

I had tried the pumpkin rolls, the pumpkin ice cream, the pumpkin pie, the pumpkin bread, the pumpkin pancakes, the pumpkin butter, the pumpkin latte. I had even tasted a pumpkin Yankee candle earlier in the week. Then pumpkin donuts!

Maybe it was the glaring sunlight and unbearable heat, but I began wondering what couldn’t take on the pumpkin flavoring. Sure, the pumpkin donut concept is a breakthrough, but humanity wasn’t even close to reaching the potential of nature’s redheaded stepchild - the pumpkin.

My first experiment was pumpkin spaghetti sauce. I won’t give away all my secrets, but basically I mixed pumpkin jelly and marinara sauce, forming a substance that, one of my taste-testers observed, resembled a “very, very, very rotten apple that had been stepped on.” He described the spaghetti and pumpkin balls as “the most nauseating thing I’ve ever tasted.”

I’m still tweaking that recipe, but I’m also moving forward with a few other ideas. I have plenty of time, after all, until next year’s festival.

For example, I’ve begun perfecting pumpkin seed pizza. I use pumpkin bread dough for the crust then spread the pumpkin’s innards over the pizza’s face. I asked a close friend to try it, and she is still recovering in the hospital. Cards are welcome.

I’ve also developed gummy worms made largely from pumpkin paste. I call them “pummy worms.” To test them, I handed out a few to children in the park. All but one of the kids sat and cried after a single bite. The other kid ate handfuls of the pummy worms, but then again, he had been eating dead leaves when I first met him.

I decided to stop giving my test food to people and turned to dogs. The terrier that ate my Pumpkin Pringles began developing symptoms of rabies somehow. It was very strange. And the dalmation that lapped up my pumpkin iced tea turned orange in the eyes. I bet that will really freak out the owner, whenever I get around to returning the dogs.

Positive feedback was lacking. None of my products - not the pumpkin vodka, not the pumpkin burritos, not the pumpkin beef stew, not the pumpkin sushi - would ever receive FDA approval if I couldn’t even force my friends to enjoy them.

The lack of success was beginning to depress and deter me, but then the common result of my experiments - regurgitation - inspired me to try just one more thing - pumpkin oatmeal.

“I was able to swallow it,” said my next test subject. “And I think I’m going to be able to keep it down.”

In other words, “Success!”

I’m already envisioning the pumpkin oatmeal eating contest, with faces wallowing in large bowls of the stuff, at the 2010 Pumpkin Festival, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I want the recipe to be just right.

I’m currently hallowing out a pumpkin and planning to fill the shell with oatmeal - a wonderful alternative to candy for the trick-or-treaters.

Do I need a license to do this?