Pumpkins, especially at this time of year, are more famous for sitting on porches than they are for sitting on plates. Still, they’re just as festive chopped into treats as they are carved into tricks.

That’s because a pumpkin isn’t actually a Jack-o’-lantern until it’s hollowed out and carved for Halloween into a kooky, crooked-looking face. Until then — before it’s got downward slanting eyebrows and big, square-shaped teeth — it’s not a Jack-o’-lantern at all. It’s a squash, and squash aren’t scary. They’re scrumptious.

Although the idea of eating pumpkins is new to many people, who are used to decorating with pumpkins but not devouring them, it’s actually very old. In fact, Native Americans — who regularly dried strips of pumpkin, which they then wove into mats — often roasted long strips of pumpkin over an open flame, then ate them as snacks. When the Pilgrims came to the New World and discovered them, however, is when pumpkins really began transforming from gourd into gourmet cuisine. After all, colonists were responsible for making not only the first pumpkin pie — they supposedly made it by slicing the top off a pumpkin, removing the seeds, filling the inside with milk, spices and honey, then baking the entire pumpkin in the hot ashes of a dying fire  — but also pumpkin soup and even pumpkin beer.

Jack-o’-lanterns came later. Irish immigrants made them out of turnips to honor a myth about a man nicknamed “Stingy Jack,” who, according to legend, played a series of tricks on the devil and was therefore barred from both heaven and hell, forcing him to wander the earth with only a burning piece of coal, which he kept inside a hollowed out turnip, to light his way. When Irish immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were more plentiful and more affordable than turnips. So, they began using those as Jack-o’-lanterns, instead.

Pumpkins are still super plentiful and super affordable, which is all the more reason to try not only carving them, but also eating them. Instead of pumpkin pie, try making pumpkin cheesecake, or adding cooked mashed pumpkin to your favorite muffin or cake recipes, which will be more moist thanks to the pumpkin. For something more savory than sweet, try mashed pumpkin instead of mashed potatoes, pumpkin-filled pasta — ravioli or tortellini, for instance — or roasted pumpkin, sliced and then cooked in a high-temperature oven with olive oil and sea salt.

Speaking of roasting, don’t forget the pumpkin seeds. Known as “pepitas,” they can be toasted on a cookie sheet in a low-temperature oven, then eaten as snacks.

However you decide to prepare your pumpkin, now’s the time to do it, as 80 percent of the pumpkin supply in the United States is available in October. Whether you get yours at the grocery store or the pumpkin patch, choose smaller, so-called “sugar” pumpkins for eating and never eat a pumpkin that’s been carved into a Jack-o’-lantern. The best pumpkins will be blemish free, have their stems in tact and have a dull, not shiny, finish.