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Join Cub Scouts in fighting Illinois House Bill 208 - NO PUMPKIN as state pie?


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"Official State......

Dinosaur: Astrodon Johnsoni

Crustacean: Callinectes sapidus Rathbun

State Soil: Maryland sassafras

Sport: Jousting

 

Oh, I could go on... Please, NAME an official state pie/dessert/snack food.....

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Ok - maybe inedible is the wrong word - Jack-O-Lantern pumpkins are edible but only in the sense that turf grass is technically edible, or in the sense of Charlie Chapin boiling leather shoes edible. Sure, you can eat it if you want, but the difference in taste would be like the difference in taste between sweet corn and field corn. Best way to eat field corn is to boil it then slather on salt, pepper and butter - the taste of the salt, pepper and butter will mask the tastelessness of the corn. Sure, you can make a pumpkin pie out of a Jack-O-Lantern pumpkin, but it would be wise to double, or even triple the pumpkin pie spices. A good eating pumpkin doesn't require a lot of pumpkin pie spice.

 

Illinois has a state snack - Popcorn - Illinois is the third largest producer of popcorn in the US (Nebraska is #1 - Indiana, home of Orville Redenbacker (the person) is #2). Now here's something the Cub Scouts should get behind - changing the state snack. I'm sure the school kids that put that forth as a school project thought it was a good idea but there really is a much better choice for state snack - in 1930, in Schiller Park, Illinois, James Dewar, while trying to find a use for some idle equipment, invented what might be the most iconic man-made snack food in the history of the universe - Twinkie. So how about it Illinois Cib Scouts - are you ready to correct a grave injustice??

 

PS - SSScout - Maryland has an official state dessert - Smith Island Cake

 

PPS - I've been having a lot of fun googling this stuff - looking up state soils is eye opening - There are more than enough named soils so that each state can have it's own official state soil. Illinois state soil is Drummond. We don't have an official dinosaur (because to date there have never been any dinosaur bones found in Illinois) but we do have an official state fossil - the Tully Monster - and if the Chicago Bears ever do move out of Chicago, they should be renamed the Illinois Tully Monsters.

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Smith Island Cake... I knew that. With Global warming raising sea levels, we may need to remember the recipe...http://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/recipes/smith-island-ten-layer-cake/9983/ Hard to find the cake to buy around here.

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"Pumpkin" is, according to the USDA not just pumpkin.

 

5.5 Pumpkins The scope of pumpkin includes Hubbard, gem squash, butternut and flat white pumpkin (“Boerpampoenâ€Â).

 

Mostly, you are enjoying Blue Hubbard pie.

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