Brits don’t really get the whole pumpkin thing. Thanks to the power of commerce, sales of Pumpkin Spice Lattes have been hitting hard in the UK for the past few years. Brits love their coffee, and in this case the Starbucks drink is the exception that proves the rule.
Since pumpkins are native to North America, it makes sense that they might not have made it to this side of the pond. They are grown over here, though; it’s possible to buy pumpkins from grocery stores around Halloween. What hasn’t really caught on is pumpkin in a non-decorative capacity. It’s practically impossible to buy any pumpkin-related foods in the UK. Butternut squash mostly takes the place of pumpkin, resulting in no pumpkin pie, no pumpkin bread, no pumpkin soup, and worst of all, no pumpkin-flavored IPAs. Now and then a celebrity chef might use pumpkin in a recipe, treating it more like a rare and unusual ingredient.
Luckily, there are plenty of places online selling imported canned pumpkin and pie filling for those of us who need our seasonal fix of the orange stuff. Globalization is magic.
Enguhland 