Pumpkin Pie

Thanksgiving and the New England Pie:
Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin and squash were known in England. Early recipes for English pumpkin pies prescribe layers of sliced, spiced and fried pumpkin, combined with sugar and eggs.

Pumpkins supply a great deal of food for a very small farming effort. The American colonists soon made them a staple of their diet. According to a satirical ballad written in 1774 (but which may have originated as early as the 1640s)

"We have pumkin at morning and pumkin at noon,
If it was not for pumkin we should be undoon."

Americans developed their own style of pumpkin pie. Unlike the sliced English version, American pumpkin pie was a pumpkin custard, sweetened and flavored with spices, baked in a pastry shell.

"The feeling of a boy towards pumpkin-pie has never been properly considered. There is an air of festivity about its approach in the fall. The boy is willing to help pare and cut up the pumpkin, and he watches with the greatest interest the stirring-up process and the pouring into the scalloped crust. When the sweet savor of the baking reaches his nostrils, he is filled with the most delightful anticipations."

Being a Boy by Charles Dudley Warner, 1878.

Click HERE for "POMPKIN PUDDING" - 1796

Click HERE for PUMPKIN PIE - 1847

Click HERE for MRS. O’S PUMPKIN PIE - 1855

Click HERE for PUMPKIN PIE - 1878

"Pumpkin pies are, in almost all parts of New England, regarded as quite a luxury. The common method of making the crust renders them objectionable… Nor is it, after all, very nutritious."

Food reformer William A. Alcott in
The Young Housekeeper, or
Thoughts on Food & Cookery, 1838.

William A. Alcott’s healthful pumpkin pie :
"To one quart of stewed and strained pumpkin, add one quart of new milk, and sweeten it to your taste. For the crust, take wheat meal, wet with buttermilk to a sufficient stiffness to roll out. Bake it in deep dishes."

Pick your pie!

Click HERE for Mince Meat Pie

Click HERE for Apple Pie

Click HERE for Cranberry Tart

PUMPKIN PIE

Four maids of a housekeeping turn are we,
With implements ready for work you see,
Spoons and pans and a long recipe
For the making of pumpkin pies.

Stir and stir, til you stir long enough,
Roll the crust so it won’t be tough,
Daintily season it - this is the stuff
For the making of pumpkin pies.

Cover the tins with the flaky crust,
Sprinkle the pie with cinnamon dust,
There’s science and skill, and art, I trust,
In the making of pumpkin pies.

A New Speaker for Our Little Folks
by Laura Augusta Yerkes, 1902.