Babs, there are actually two kinds of canned pumpkin sold here in the US. One is just pureed pumpkin and the other is pie filling. They both are cooked I believe. I would do a search on google or a site like allrecipes.com on preparing pumpkin. I don't believe it is huge project to make it, but there is little difference in homemade pumpkin and the canned version.

I just saw a program here recently that said our (American) tradition of carving jack-o-lanterns into pumpkins came from Irish immigrants that carved faces into turnips and rutabegas for the holiday Samhain?

Ed