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Thanksgiving
and the New England Pie :
Sugar & Spice |
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| In the 17th and 18th centuries, North America's sugar was
imported from British sugar cane plantations in the Caribbean. The sugar was packaged in
large cones that weighed about 10 pounds each. Housewives cut the cones into smaller
chunks and pounded the sugar into granular form as needed. Molasses was a
lower cost by-product of sugar refining and used widely. |
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A 1630 list of provisions that settlers
to New England were advised to bring included sugar, cloves, cinnamon, mace and nutmeg.
These spices, with the addition of ginger and allspice, represent those traditionally used
in Thanksgiving pies. All these spices are tropical in origin and highly regarded because
of their expense and scarcity.
North America’s spices were imported from the islands of the Indian
Ocean, the Pacific and the Caribbean. |
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| Spices were transported whole to minimize damage during shipping and were
ground after delivery, either by the local middleman or by the housewife. |
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By the late 19th century, commercially preground and
packaged spices had became available. Adulteration of spices was common, however, and
"purity" a genuine concern. |
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| The spices most commonly used in Thanksgiving pies are
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Cinnamon - the spicy bark of young branches of a tree native to the
East Indies.
Mace - the inner covering of the nutmeg, flattened and dried.
Ginger - the root-stock of a reed-like plant that grows in all tropical climates.
Allspice - the dried fruit of a small Caribbean tree.
Cloves - the dried flower buds of an evergreen native to the East Indies.
Nutmeg - the dried kernel of the fruit of a tree that grows in all tropical
climates. |
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| Click HERE
for an 1858 recipe for spiced pumpkin pie. |
Click HERE for an 1865 recipe for "Sugar & Spice"
apple pie. |
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"For as much as a
week beforehand, 'we children' were employed.. in pounding cinnamon, allspice and
cloves in a great lignum-vitae mortar…
In those days there were none of the thousand ameliorations of the labors of housekeeping
which have since arisen - no ground and prepared spices and sweet herbs; everything came
into our hands in the rough, and in bulk, and the reducing of it into a state for use was
deemed one of the appropriate labors of childhood." |
Oldtown Folks, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1869.
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Pick
your pie! |
| Click HERE for Pumpkin Pie |
| Click HERE for Mince Meat Pie |
Click HERE for Apple Pie |
Click HERE for Cranberry Tart |
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