Thanksgiving Pie

Thanksgiving and the
New England Pie

by Peggy M. Baker,
Director & Librarian, Pilgrim Society

An exhibition
sponsored by
Mayflower Realty
November-December 2002

"Ah! On Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West
From North and from South come the pilgrim and guest,
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored,
When the care-weary man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before;
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past like the rich pumpkin pie?"

John Greenleaf Whittier

Many Thanksgiving culinary traditions date only from the Victorian customs of the 19th century. The pie, however, has been a staple of New England dinner tables since the days of the earliest settlers.

Pie was a popular English dish, brought to America by colonists. American taste in pies remained traditional, rooted in English cuisine and using English-style ingredients. America’s pumpkins resembled European squashes, cranberries resembled tart European berries. Apple seeds were imported from England and orchards planted. Ingredients for mince meat could be found both in England and America.

The first cookbook written by an American and using specifically American ingredients was Amelia Simmons’ 1796 American Cookery. Her recipes include the pies that we still consider Thanksgiving traditions : apple pie, pumpkin "pudding" baked in a crust, minced meat pie and cranberry tart.

"There were pies in preparation by the score; mince pies and apple, and cranberry, and squash, and pumpkin… There was flour dust on almost every thing; especially when the pie crusts were rolling out, and the tarts were being made… My aunt never pretended to bake less than sixty pies of a Thanksgiving time; and I have often seen an exact hundred standing thickly all over the tables."
Dovecote; or, the Heart of the Homestead by George Canning Hill, 1854.