PUMPKIN SALES STEADY AHEAD OF HALLOWEEN

PUMPKIN SALES STEADY AHEAD OF HALLOWEEN

(ANSA) - Rome, October 30 - Pumpkin sales this year are holding up in Italy, farmers union Coldiretti announced Friday ahead of Halloween weekend.

Higher yields and lower prices have helped keep demand high, said the organization, noting that consumers appeared to be buying pumpkins more for traditional autumn recipes than for Halloween.

Grown throughout the country, pumpkin makes a popular pasta filling during the fall months and the main ingredient of a vegetable stew typical of the northern region of Lombardy.

Coldiretti said Italy produced over 60 million kg of pumpkins this year and a growing number are being hollowed out and carved into Halloween decorations.

A recently imported holiday, Halloween is gaining popularity in Italy despite repeated appeals by the Catholic Church to ignore it.

On Thursday, Vatican newspaper l'Osservatore Romano published an article calling the holiday anti-Christian and warning against its ''undercurrents of occultism''.