Blame it on the Irish.

Peter Mayle traces the impact of American Halloween on the French in a 24 October piece in The New York Times. One of Mayle's friends chides Americans for wasting the delicious flesh of pumpkins on crude decorations, and thoughtfully provides a recipe for a pumpkin risotto.
 
 Elsewhere, Stacy Conradt describes 10 Halloween traditions in Mental Floss, and blames pumpkin carving on "Stingy Jack," a tradition of carving vegetables like turnips and rutabagas in Ireland.
 
 Meanwhile, in Sicily, they're gearing up for All Saint's Day on 1 November and the Day of the Dead on 2 November with gorgeous marzipan "frutta da marturana" shaped and painted like fruit, vegetables and nuts.
 
 In China, we've finished off the last moon cakes of the Autumn Festival.
 
 And in Mexico, it's time for sugar skulls and the Dia de los Muertos.
 
 Appy Alowine!
 
 Photograph of marzipan 'frutta da marturana' in Palermo, Sicily.