Not everyone is a pumpkin-flavored food fan! Though it seems nearly impossible to escape the fall favorite once autumn rolls around, there are a handful of celebrities and famous chefs who simply don’t like the all-pumpkin-all-the-time mentality.
One of the first celebs to speak out against the seasonal fascination with pumpkin was Last Week Tonight With John Oliver host John Oliver.
In a web exclusive released in October 2014, the Brit spent more than three minutes bashing the well-known American trend. “Pumpkin spice foods inexplicably seem to grow more omnipresent every year, even though there’s no actual pumpkin in the drinks,” he quipped after taking aim at pumpkin-flavored caffeinated beverages.
Oliver was also astounded to learn that each American eats more than five pounds of pumpkin per year, which, as he calculated, is “more than the amount of pumpkin in five pumpkin pies.” That statistic, he joked, is “even crazier than the fact that we allegedly swallow eight spiders in a lifetime.”
Oliver added during his segment that the obsession with pumpkin spice is really based in a fondness for fall. “Pumpkin spice is just egg nog for morning people,” he declared. “And I will be subject to its tyranny no longer. It stops here!”
The late Anthony Bourdain was equally vocal in his hatred of pumpkin-flavored foods. During a Reddit AMA in 2016, the Kitchen Confidential author had a biting retort when asked about the fad. “I would like to see the pumpkin spice craze drowned in its own blood,” he replied. “Quickly.”
In a conversation with news anchor Willie Geist that same year, Bourdain likened those infatuated with pumpkin spice to people hanging outside of a methadone clinic.
Some stars, however, are a bit less forceful in their attacks on pumpkin-flavored foods. When Ina Garten was asked to weigh in on a series of popular culinary movements in November 2018, she only threw a little bit of shade at caffeinated pumpkin drinks. As she put it: “I like coffee to taste like coffee.”
Scroll down to see more famous faces who have no patience for pumpkin spice mania!