Technically speaking, your pumpkin pie likely lacks one main ingredient — pumpkin

It might just be the most misleading dish on your Thanksgiving dinner table.

We’re talking about that pumpkin pie. Or, maybe more accurately, it’s a “pumpkin” pie.

OK, yes, this is a little bit technical — and a “squash pie” sure doesn’t sound as appetizing — but it is what it is.

There’s a good reason pumpkin pies — and canned pumpkin — aren’t made with a legit, ready-to-carve pumpkin that you’d put on your porch and light a candle inside.

In fact, that would be a “disaster,” said Stella Parks, author of “BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

That’s “because field pumpkins taste disgusting: stringy, watery, and bland,” she said, according to the newspaper.

Forbes agrees.

“Anyone who has made the mistake of cooking up the common field pumpkin will know that it yields dreadfully bland, vegetal and soupy flesh. No surprise - pumpkins are 90 percent water,” Forbes reported.

Parks says canned pumpkin tastes better, the Wall Street Journal reported, because it has a “dark secret.”

Are you ready for it?

Canned pumpkin is actually made from Dickinson pumpkins, Time reports.

Well, pumpkin is in the name, but that doesn’t actually mean it’s a pumpkin. It’s technical, remember?

Dickinson pumpkins — also known as “pie pumpkins” — are part of the Cucurbita moschata species, according to Kansas State University Research and Extension. “True pumpkins,” though, are part of Cucurbita pepo.

According to K-State Research and Extension, “the term ‘pumpkin’ is used for anything that is round and orange, while the term ‘squash’ is used for an edible fruit of some other shape or color.”

If you see a Dickinson pumpkin in a field, you’ll likely think it “bears a lot more resemblance to a butternut squash than anything you’d think to carve a face on,” the Huffington Post reported.

The Atlantic says Dickinson pumpkins look like a “pale, slightly misshapen butternut squash.”

So, by the K-State Research and Extension definition, it’s a squash — and not, in fact, a pumpkin.

Libby’s Pumpkin produces about 90 million pies’ “worth of canned pumpkin” each year, Forbes reports, and makes 85 percent of the canned pumpkin sold around the world. Libby’s uses the tan-colored squash for the canned good, according to Forbes.

Libby’s, though, brands its canned product as “100% pure pumpkin,” according to its product description.

“Our Dickinson variety of pumpkin goes from seed to can right here in the USA,” the description says.

No, the brand is not breaking any food-labeling laws, according to the FDA.

“Canned ‘pumpkin’ has for many years been packed from field pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo) or certain varieties of firm-shelled, golden-fleshed, sweet squash (Cucurbita maxima), or mixtures of these,” the FDA says. “Pumpkin and squash are sometimes mixed intentionally to obtain the consistency most acceptable to users.”

The FDA says it has “advised canners” since 1938 that it won’t regulate using “pumpkin” or “canned pumpkin” if it’s made from squash or a mixture of squash and pumpkin.

“In the absence of any evidence that this designation misleads or deceives consumers we see no reason to change this policy,” the FDA says.

This story was originally published November 21, 2018 at 3:53 PM.