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Check out Linda's favorite Old-Fashioned
Pumpkin Pie - Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie
The
name pumpkin originated from the Greek word for "large melon" which
is "pepon." "Pepon" was changed by the French into "pompon."
The English termed it "pumpion" or "pompion."
1621
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Early
American settlers
of Plimoth Plantation (1620-1692), the first permanent European
settlement in southern New England, might have
made pumpkin pies (of sorts) by
making stewed pumpkins or by filling a hollowed out shell with milk, honey and
spices, and then baking it in hot ashes. An actual present-day pumpkin pie
with crust is a myth, as ovens
to bake pies were not available in the colony at that stage.
Northeastern Native American tribes
grew squash and pumpkins.
They roasted
or boiled them for eating. Historians think that the settlers were
not very impressed by the Indians’ squash and/or pumpkins until they
had to survive their first harsh winter
when about half of the settlers died
from scurvy and exposure. The Native Americans brought pumpkins as gifts to the
first settlers, and taught them the many used for the pumpkin. This is what developed into
pumpkin pie about 50 years after the first Thanksgiving in America.
The early settlers of Plimoth Plantation brought English cookery and
possibly some English cookbooks with them to the new world. The
present day historians of Plimoth Plantation don't really know what
cookbooks, if any, were owned by the 17th century settlers.
1651 - Francois Pierre la Varenne, the famous French chef and
author of one of the most important French cookbooks of the 17th century, wrote a cookbook
called Le
Vrai Cuisinier Francois (The True French Cook). It was translated and
published in England as The French Cook in 1653. It has a recipe for a
pumpkin pie that included the pastry:
Tourte of pumpkin -
Boile it with good milk, pass it
through a straining pan very thick, and mix it with sugar, butter, a little salt and if
you will, a few stamped almonds; let all be very thin. Put it in your sheet of paste; bake
it. After it is baked, besprinkle it with sugar and serve.
1670s - By the 1670's,
recipes for a sort of "pumpion pie" were appearing in such English cookbooks
as the The Queen-like closet, or rich cabinet stored with all manner of
rare receipts for preserving, candying and cookery by Hannah Wooley and
The Compleat Cook - Expertly Prescribing the Most Ready Wayes, Whether
Italian, Spanish or French, for Dressing of Flesh and Fish, Ordering Of
Sauces or Making of Pastry by W.M. NOTE: Thanks to
librarian JK Holloway for her assistance.
- 1670 - The Queen-like Closet by Hannah Wooley:
To make a Pumpion-Pie - Take a Pumpion,
pare it, and cut it in thin slices, dip it in beaten Eggs and Herbs
shred small, and fry it till it be enough, then lay it into a Pie
with Butter, Raisins, Currans, Su|gar and Sack, and in the bottom
some sharp Apples, when it is baked, butter it and serve it in.
- 1671 - The Compleat Cook by W.M:
Pumpion Pie -
Take about halfe a pound of Pumpion and slice it, a handfull of Tyme,
a little Rosemary, Parsley and sweet Marjoram slipped off the
stalks, and chop them smal, then take Cinamon, Nutmeg, Pepper, and
six Cloves, and beat them; take ten Eggs and beat them; then mix
them, and beat them altogether, and put in as much Sugar as you
think fit, then fry them like a froiz; after it is fryed, let it
stand till it be cold, then fill your Pye, take sliced Apples thinne
round wayes, and lay a row of the Froiz, and a layer of Apples with
Currans betwixt the layer while your Pye is fitted, and put in a
good deal of sweet butter before you close it; when the Pye is
baked, take six yolks of Eggs, some white-wine or Verjuyce, & make a
Caudle of this, but not too thick; cut up the Lid and put it in,
stir them well together whilst the Eggs and Pumpions be not
perceived, and so serve it up.
1796 - It was not until 1796 that a truly American
cookbook, American cookery, by an American orphan by
Amelia Simmons, was published. It was the first American cookbook
written and published in America, and the first cook book that developed recipes for foods
native to America. Her pumpkin puddings were baked in a crust and similar to present
day pumpkin pies:
Pompkin Pudding No. 1. One quart stewed and
strained, 3 pints cream, 9 beaten eggs, sugar, mace, nutmeg and ginger, laid into paste
No. 7 or 3, and with a dough spur, cross and chequer it, and baked in dishes three
quarters of an hour.
Pompkin Pudding No. 2. One quart of milk, 1 pint pompkin, 4 eggs,
molasses, allspice and ginger in a crust, bake 1 hour.
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