Nielsen data reveals Americans spend about half a billion dollars on pumpkin spice products every year., Pumpkin Spice Lattes earned the company its best sales week of all time when the drink was reintroduced to fans on Aug. 30."It's part of a tradition, it's included in movies," said Nick Kokot, 20, a second-year college student and self-proclaimed pumpkin lover. "Pumpkins also created a nice culture with pumpkin spice donuts, drinks, everything.
"But those modern-day traditions actually date back to much older traditions of associating the pumpkin with a small family farm. The idyllic kind of small family farm in American life." She details the pumpkin's rise from its poor reputation during colonial times, when it was seen as bland, to a growing sense of pride imbued in the vegetable during the 19th century as it started to be seen as a symbol of the simplicity of farm life.