OCTOBER is smack dab in the middle of pumpkin season. Unlike its cousin, winter squash, which is available almost all year long, pumpkin is a distinctive fall-winter pleasure, to be enjoyed from September through December. The rest of the year, when absence makes the heart grow fonder, we can enjoy commercially canned pumpkin, pumpkin that we have frozen or winter squashes that are pumpkin taste-a-likes. And we can enjoy them in hundreds of different ways, far beyond pumpkin pie.

Despite its popularity in this country as pastry fodder, other cuisines feature pumpkin in savvy dishes. How did Americans become so fixated on pumpkin pie while the rest of the world was revering in pumpkin curries, soups, stews and pumpkin paired with beans, greens, rice and pasta? Pumpkin was mercifully plentiful when the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Colony, helping them survive the winter of 1623. In its honor they wrote: "We have pumpkin at morning and pumpkin at noon, if it were not for pumpkin we would be undoon." But those same Pilgrims brought with them from England a taste for familiar spices--cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger--and a love of rich meat pies. At some point they put pumpkin into the culinary equation and voile, the American pumpkin pie. Unfortunately, the American pumpkin has languished in near obscurity ever since, relegated to guest appearances at Thanksgiving dinner.

Before you start eyeing that jack-o'-lantern for supper, however, note that not all pumpkins are created equal: some are for carving and some for cooking. Deeming them stringy and watery, every cookbook consulted, every chef and expert interviewed said emphatically, "Don't cook with Halloween pumpkins!" But Karen Mangum, R.D., author of Life s Simple Pleasures, Fine Veunetarian Cooking For Sharing And Celebration (Harvest Press, 199 6), says, "If you've got them, why not use them? I cook with mine all the time." Mangum seeds, slices and bakes hers, and says they're delicious. Maybe, when it comes to jack-o'-lanterns, satisfactory cooking results are the luck of the draw.

To further complicate matters, some pumpkins that are good for cooking, are also good-looking. Instead of Halloween candy, Karen Caplan, president of Frieda's Finest Produce, Los Angeles, hands out tiny mini-pumpkins to trick-or-treaters who come knocking at her door. "I must give out 500 little pumpkins a year. They're not only adorable, they're delicious."