Pale by any comparison: Albino pumpkins becoming more popular for Halloween

CHICAGO -- The pumpkins look like something scared THEM.

In front of a supermarket on Chicago's North Side, in the midst of bin after bin of their bright orange brethren is a single bin overflowing with pumpkins that are white as a sheet.

Not painted white. Just white.

They're called Ghost Riders. They also go by Snowballs, Luminas and Caspers -- presumably a reference to the friendly ghost. And the ones about the size of a baseball? They're Baby Boos.

Whatever they're called, eerie-looking albino pumpkins are finding their way into more and more homes this Halloween season. And while they're not scaring traditional orange pumpkins out of a job just yet, they're clearly growing on people.

Just ask Scott Gensler. His family's farm near Rockford, Gensler Gardens, decided to grow 6,000 white pumpkins this year because the 1,000 grown last year proved such a hit.

But more than a week before Halloween, all 6,000 had been gobbled up, and the Genslers are already thinking about next year.

"We will probably plan on growing 20,000 white pumpkins," he said.

White pumpkins -- simply another variety of the autumn favorite -- have been around for a while, but what was once a curiosity at farmers markets is now making the scene at larger groceries and pumpkin patches.

"White has become a strong decorating element in people's homes," said Nancy Soriano, editor-in-chief of Country Living magazine, which put pumpkins that had been painted white on its cover last October. "They might have white pottery, sofas, and white pumpkins add a very iconic look."

The white pumpkins appeal to everyone from parents to party planners to those who say white pumpkins, in the right light, are a bit more ghoulish than their orange cousins.

Opting for no pumpkin guts

For parents, who have long seen the tradition of pumpkin carving as a recipe for sliced fingers -- both theirs and their children's -- the white pumpkins offer a better canvas for drawing or painting, all without the mess of pumpkin guts.

Author Victoria Pericon, who spotted white pumpkins this year for the first time in Manhattan, thinks her crayon-wielding daughter will have a ball drawing a jack-o'-lantern face.

"That's why I was excited by it," said Pericon, who wrote "Mommy Land: Entering the Insanity of Motherhood." "Natalie, my 2-year-old, will be crawling all over this thing."

For those who do want to carve into the pumpkins, they'll find they still have orange flesh beneath the white rind, adding to their ghostly appeal.

"When you get a dark night, I think they're going to look pretty cool outside," said Karla Neely, a Dallas public relations account executive who bought a white pumpkin for her home last week. "They seem like they will almost glow."

Deborah Racicot can attest to that. The executive pastry chef at Gotham Bar and Grill in New York has been carving white pumpkins up for years to display at her house and says there is nothing like them.

"When you cut them open they have the orange flesh. You put a candle in it, you can't see the pumpkin," she said. "You see just kind of the glowing face."