UTAH TECH UNIVERSITY'S STUDENT NEWS SOURCE | March 29, 2024

Autumn begins with seasonal foods

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While leaves start to change, so do our appetites.

It’s the time of year when Starbucks promotes its Pumpkin Spice Latte, Mrs. Fields bakes pumpkin cookies, and Marie Callender’s sells lots of pumpkin pies.

“I love all the yummy flavors that come along with fall,” said Kelsey Farr, a general education major from West Jordan. “I look forward to eating certain foods in the fall time.”

Foods like potatoes are harvested throughout the year, and ingredients like pumpkin pie filling are always in local grocery stores. 

“I am not sure why they are just a seasonal thing,” said Brianne Adams, a sophomore general education major from Monroe. “I just know that it’s the only time I eat stuff like that.”

Adams said she loves to get Pumpkin Spice Lattes every fall, but they are not strictly seasonal.

Starbucks will take the pumpkin flavors off its menu when it starts adding Christmas flavors, but if customers ask, employees will still make almost all of the seasonal flavors months later.  

“I don’t think spices really have a season, so I don’t get why I can’t just have cinnamon flavors or pumpkin pies all the time,” said Shae-Lynn Dumouchel, a nursing major from West Jordan.

Missi Huber, a Marie Callender’s baker, said that pumpkin pies are sold year round. 

“I’m used to people ordering them in the middle of February,” Huber said. “Some people think that it’s strange to even make them during that time of the year, but they are still purchased even then.”

Huber went on to explain that she thinks it is just a misconception of the fact that pumpkins are ready to harvest in the fall, so that automatically makes people assume they can only be consumed then.

“It’s easier to make a pumpkin pie in the middle of spring than it is to even make an apple pie,” Huber said. “Just because a certain product is ready to eat at a certain time of year doesn’t mean that it can’t be preserved for extended periods of time.”

But that doesn’t seem to be the case for Mrs. Fields. 

“It really bugs me that [Mrs. Fields] will only make pumpkin cookies in the fall,” Dumouchel said. “They just stamp a ‘limited time’ thing on their cookies and think it makes me want to stock up on a year supply of them.” 

Farr said she thinks keeping things marked strictly for fall is just a marketing technique to gain hype and get people to eat at certain places. 

It is still undecided if specific foods are strictly seasonal or can be enjoyed all the time. Tell us what you think on our Facebook page or Twitter @DixieSunNews #DSCfallfoods.