Carving the Halloween Pumpkin

Carving the Halloween pumpkin is October work done in a set order, and it begins before any knife touches a rind. In the bins out front of the grocery, among the ornamental gourds and the hay bales, and in the fields where the vines have gone brown, the pumpkins sit in the cold morning air, and the one that will hold a flame through Halloween night has to be chosen with care.

The choosing

The right pumpkin gets lifted in both hands. A heavy one for its size has thick walls and will hold a shape; a light one has often dried inside. It is set down on the ground to check that the bottom is flat, and the skin is pressed all over for soft spots. A dry, firm stem means the fruit was left on the vine long enough. The one that comes home sits level on the counter without a shim, and when rapped with a knuckle it gives back a hollow, dull sound.

The lid

The first cut is the lid, made with a serrated kitchen knife held at a slant, its edge leaning toward the center of the pumpkin. The cut is traced in a circle around the stem, and the slant matters: a straight cut lets the lid fall through when it is replaced. When the circle is complete, the lid is worked loose from the cut with both hands and lifted by the stem. The cut faces pull apart with a wet tearing sound, and the top comes free with strings hanging from its underside.

The hollowing

The inside comes out with a large metal spoon, or with the thin flat scoop from a carving kit. Strings and seeds are scraped from every inner face and pulled out by the handful; the pulp comes away in cold, wet strings. The seeds go into a bowl — they are October food, washed and salted and roasted — and the stringy pulp goes to the compost. The scraping continues until no pulp clings to the wall and the rind is an even thickness, thin enough that it gives slightly under a thumb pressed from the outside.

The face

The face is drawn before any of it is cut. A felt-tip marker makes two eyes, a nose, and a mouth on the smooth side of the rind: triangles with the points up for eyes, a triangle with the point down for the nose, and for the mouth a crescent or a jagged line of small squares. Most faces are drawn freehand; a stencil taped to the rind works the same way, the outline pricked through with a needle. When the marker is set down, the face can be read from across the room, and the lines run clear of the stem's scar.

The cutting

The small knife is a narrow paring blade or the short saw-toothed one from the kit. The point of the blade is pushed through the rind on a drawn line and drawn along it in short strokes, the other hand resting on the outside of the pumpkin for the push. At each corner the blade is pulled out and pushed in again; a blade turns poorly inside a curve. The cut pieces fall inward into the hollow and are lifted out, leaving wet holes that smell of raw squash. When every shape is free, the blade goes back through the mouth to clean the line, and the cut faces show a clean edge of pale rind.

The light

A small candle is set on the floor of the hollow — a tea light or a short taper — and lit with a long match, the kind kept for the fireplace. The flame is left to steady, and the inside of the pumpkin goes orange. The lid is set back on over the stem; the slant of the cut keeps it from falling through, and the smoke finds its way out through the joint while the light finds its way out through the eyes, the nose, and the mouth.

The setting

The carved pumpkin is carried out and set where the light will show against something dark: a porch step, a windowsill, the top of a wall. On the porch step it faces the walk. The candle leans and gutters in the October air. The pumpkin sits on the porch step, the candle leaning inside it, and a wedge of orange light lies across the boards between it and the walk.