Stars Who Can’t Stand Pumpkin Spice or Pumpkin-Flavored Foods

Credit: Alex Berliner/Invision/AP/Shutterstock; Scott Roth/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

Stars Who Can't Stand Pumpkin Spice or Pumpkin-Flavored Foods

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. [ami-related id="1286129" url="https://www.usmagazine.com/food/pictures/savage-fast-food-tweets/" title="Savage Fast Food Tweets" target="" showsubt="false" thumb="false" imgsrc="https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/savage-fast-food-tweets.jpg"] 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.” [jwplayer Kj9qb7u1-l3ahXupL] 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!

Credit: Alex Berliner/Invision/AP/Shutterstock; Scott Roth/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

Stars Who Can't Stand Pumpkin Spice or Pumpkin-Flavored Foods

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. [ami-related id="1286129" url="https://www.usmagazine.com/food/pictures/savage-fast-food-tweets/" title="Savage Fast Food Tweets" target="" showsubt="false" thumb="false" imgsrc="https://www.usmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/savage-fast-food-tweets.jpg"] 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.” [jwplayer Kj9qb7u1-l3ahXupL] 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!

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Gordon Ramsey

The Hell’s Kitchen host doesn’t exactly hate the taste of pumpkin, but he tweeted in 2015 that he only enjoys it “around October/November time.”

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Al Roker

The Today Show coanchor voiced his disdain for the seasonal favorite in September 2020, during the third hour of an episode of the morning show. "So I'm going to go on the record, I hate pumpkin spice lattes. There's no pumpkin in it. It's chemicals, it's artificial flavoring — just why?" he wondered. "If you want it in your coffee, fine. But you start putting it in all these other things, it doesn't taste good! I've tried the Pumpkin Spice Oreos. It's horrible."

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Martha Stewart

The lifestyle maven didn’t hold back when asked how she felt about gourd-flavored foods during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen in September 2017. “Martha, is pumpkin-spice-everything delicious or for basic bitches only?” the Bravo boss inquired. “The latter,” Stewart declared without missing a beat. Fellow guest Seth MacFarlane, however, wasn’t exactly on the same page. “It’s not true,” he joked.

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Anthony Bourdain

"Who's eating this stuff?" the late Parts Unknown host wondered in an interview with Willie Geist in 2016. "Is there some vast demographic of pumpkin-crazed people hanging outside of, what the pumpkin outlet is, like a methadone clinic, waiting for it to open up so they can get their pumpkin spice?"

During an event that same year in Philadelphia, Bourdain said he was “deathly against” pumpkin-flavored foods, though he did make an exception for pumpkin pie.

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John Oliver

In a Last Week Tonight web exclusive from October 2014, the late-night host waxed poetic about all things pumpkin for more than three minutes. He got the ball rolling by calling Pumpkin Spice Lattes “the coffee that tastes like a candle,” and later dragged pumpkin pie too. According to Oliver, the dessert is “only good from the moment Thanksgiving dinner ends until just after you’ve taken your first bite of it.” Ouch!

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Ina Garten

When Today asked the Barefoot Contessa host to rate food trends in November 2018, she threw shade at pumpkin spice lattes with a civilized dig. “I like coffee to taste like coffee,” she quipped. However, it’s worth noting that the Cooking for Jeffrey author isn’t entirely against pumpkin. Some of her most popular recipes include pumpkin spice cupcakes and pumpkin roulade.

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Patton Oswalt

The King of Queens alum took aim at a certain coffee chain and it’s pumpkin-flavored drinks in September 2013. “Pretty soon Starbucks will stop being coy and offer to just shove a pumpkin & a fistful of nutmeg in your ass for $20,” he tweeted at the time.

When comedian Dan Teller joked via the social media platform in October 2019 that he was “writing jokes exclusively about pumpkin flavoring,” Oswalt shot back: “You’ll hear from my lawyers on Monday."

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Alex Guarnaschelli

Though the Chopped judge once confessed to enjoying pumpkin-flavored coffee, she was over the craze by August 2019. As she tweeted at the time, “I’m trying to remember when pumpkin spice was special.”