Aromatic Folklore: The Pumpkin Spice Effect

When the air still feels like July but the store shelves smell like October, you know it’s happened: the pumpkin spice has returned. But why does that scent and that flavor have such a grip on us?

In this episode, host Aaron Crawford unpacks how old-world spices met new-world pumpkins, how marketers bottled coziness, and why “pumpkin spice” has become the smell of autumn coziness.

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What is It's Probably a Folk Thing?

The podcast about everyday stuff that turns out to be older, weirder, and way more meaningful than we realized.

Aromatic Folklore: The Pumpkin Spice Effect
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You walk into a grocery store in late September. The air conditioner is still blasting because the Western climate refuses to admit summer is over. You grab a cart, and suddenly it hits you. That smell. That warm, cozy, spicy smell.
Pumpkin spice.
It’s in the candles, the cereals, the creamers, the air fresheners, the dog treats. (Why does my dog need to taste fall? She already eats leaves.)
And before you know it, you’re thinking about sweaters, crunchy leaves, and hayrides that always sound better in theory than they feel in your tailbone.
It’s probably a folk thing.
[Intro music plays]
Welcome to It’s Probably a Folk Thing: the podcast about everyday experiences that turn out to be older, weirder, and far more meaningful than we realized.
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The Ancient Blend
Pumpkin spice might feel new, but it’s actually centuries old. That familiar spice blend (cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and ginger) have been around for centuries. Medieval Europeans used them in everything, from desserts to meat pies, partly because they were rare and expensive. If your stew smelled like nutmeg, you were rich enough to flex through fragrance.
When colonists came to America, they brought their taste for those spices along. And when they discovered pumpkins, they added the old-world spice mix to the new-world gourd. The pumpkin didn’t make the spice famous. The spice made the novel pumpkin taste familiar.
It’s the culinary equivalent of building a new house with old bricks.
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A Folk Fusion
This is where folklore takes over. Over time, pumpkins became the unofficial mascot of American autumn. They were easy to grow, easy to decorate, and (likely because they become ripe in the early fall) easy to associate with all things cozy.
We merged those old spices of warmth and comfort with the image of the pumpkin. Before long, the two were inseparable. That’s folklore at work. There were two separate traditions, one about flavor, one about harvest. They met and mashed together until nobody remembers where one ends and the other begins. Folklorists call that blending of two systems “syncretism.”
As time passed, pumpkin spice became a shorthand for fall itself. You don’t even need pumpkins anymore. A candle, a candle label, or honestly just the color orange is enough to trick our brains into thinking the seasons have changed.
And most of the time, there’s not even real spice involved. “Pumpkin spice scent” is usually a lab-born aroma designed to smell like “cozy happiness.” It’s the smell of nostalgia in aerosol form.
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The Smell of the Season
That’s what makes pumpkin spice so powerful. It has turned into a fall ritual. A sensory way to mark time. The scent tells us that the year is turning, that we’re moving from heat to harvest, from sunlight to firelight.
We used to celebrate that shift with festivals and feasts. Now we celebrate with flavored Oreos and decorative gourds we will never cook. Same instinct, different tools.
That’s folklore at its finest – a tradition that ties us to our culture, that stretches into the past and the future, and that reminds us of our coziest, warmest moments.
When we burn a pumpkin spice candle, we’re not just filling the house with a pleasant smell. We’re participating in a tradition that says, “I see the year changing, and I’m ready for it.” Even if it starts when it’s still 88 degrees outside and the leaves are as green as guacamole.
Our noses, it turns out, are better folklorists than we are. They remember patterns, connect memory to meaning, and tell stories without words.
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Closing Reflection
Pumpkin spice isn’t really about pumpkins or spice. It’s about belonging. About that moment when the air smells like memory. Every time we take a sniff, we join a centuries-old story about warmth, comfort, and the human need to mark time with something that smells nice.
So the next time you light that candle or eat that oddly orange muffin, just know that you’re not falling for a marketing gimmick. You’re performing a little ritual. A very tasty, very fragrant, very human one.
It’s definitely a folk thing.
Until next time.