1894 - A Fine Toast for Thanksgiving

Here is a toast for the pie lover at Thanksgiving!

“With rich pumpkin-pie
   And turkey give thanks.
Feel your heart mollify
   With rich pumpkin-pie.
In your neighbour descry
  A man first in the ranks.
With rich pumpkin-pie
  And turkey give thanks.”

                                             

The toast is from The Academy and Literature - Volume 45, 1894.

Dec. 7, 1881 - “Hunger is the best spice”: Remembering Grandmother's Pumpkin Pie

It seems like "American as apple pie" is a more recent American pie identity than I realized! Pumpkin pie was the one identified with the United States more often than not in the 19th century.

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This essay by "L. B. B." appeared in the New Outlook, Volume 24, 1881.

THIS is pro-eminently an American dish. No other people that I ever heard of use it. But so long as the American Eagle and the Stars and Stripes are our national emblems, so long shall we glorify our national pie. 


One generation passeth away and another cometh, yet the popular sentiment seems not to be diluted, but rather to grow in strength_ as the intrinsic excellence of the dish increases. I submit that the original “pie of pumpkin", which poets have extolled, would now be considered anything but a dainty dish, and must have borne about the same resemblance to the modern delicacy known by that name as the gowns of Puritan women did to the attire of a fashionable lady now.

I have a friend whose husband used to be always telling what good pumpkin pies his grandmother made. Unlike the traditional husband, he praised his grandmother’s cooking instead of his mother's. But he doesn’t do it now, and this is the reason: 

One day there was a guest at his table whose grandmother and his were one and the same person. This cousin was a few years older than he, and had a more accurate memory of long bygones in which they felt a common interest. For dessert my friend had provided one of her delicious pumpkin pies, called so by courtesy, but really made of squash. Naturally the host led the conversation toward his grandmother‘s pies. Not that he depreciated his wife’s skill in that line—except inferentially—but he was especially mindful of his grandmother’s. 

Said his cousin to my friend: ‘If Fred had a piece of one of her pumpkin pies now he could not swallow a mouthful of it. She made them very thick with pumpkin, sweetened them with molasses, and flavored them, if at all, with allspice."

“But you must admit, Amelia," said the discomfited gentleman, “that grandmother’s pies were good for those days."

“Hardly so much as that; for she was the plainest of plain cooks even then. But you used to call there coming home from school, hungry as a bear, and no doubt her blocks of pie tasted good; but they wouldn’t now."

That is precisely to the point. “Hunger is the best spice,” and though the primitive pumpkin pies were doubtless made according to the above simple formula, our ancestors relished them because they could get nothing better; but if one of them could step out of his picture-frame some day, and dine at the family table, he would scarcely recognize the pumpkin pic of the period as being in any degree related to his old favorite.

Alas! that the requisite skill to make these best of all pies is not universal in the land, as witness the flabby, insipid specimens seen upon so many tables. it must be chiefly for its name's sake that people continue to use the old coarse-grained pumpkin when squashes are so abundant, a thousand times better, and more easily made into pies; for squash enough for a dozen can be stowed in a few minutes, while it is a half day's job or more to stew a pumpkin. 

“The longer it is stewed the better it will be", is the old theory ; but squash is not improved by long cooking. Those which are too moist for table use are the kind for pies. Stewed squash can be kept for a week or more in a cold place, and is convenient to have all ready to make up. A teacup of the strained squash and an egg to a pie is the rule; but at the present price of eggs they seem to go further, and two for three pies will do very well, and you would hardly know the difference. Cinnamon and ginger are the only spices needed—enough of both, especially the former—a little molasses for color, and. a good deal of sugar—the amount can only be determined by tasting, and “ a little more " is nearly always needed. The remainder is all milk, the richer the better ; but if last night’s milk is used, from which the cream has been removed for coffee, it will scarcely be missed. Now what can be simpler to make than such a pie ? And yet in perfection it is the very poetry of food, and fit for a king's table.

Of course the crust is a factor not to be overlooked. It should not be thicker than the under crust of other pies, though it used to be thought otherwise, and that any degree of toughness was allowable for pumpkin pies. Happily, in these days, the kind that we have to exert ourselves to cut is not popular.

But the filling is the principal thing; above all, let there be enough to fill the dish, without having a battlement of crust to guard the edge and hinder approach to the riches within.

The baking is also important. An underdone pie, especially at the bottom, had better never have been made. No rule for the time required can be accurately given; but a slow bake is the best, which will require about an hour. 

When done "just right," cutting the pie will scarcely soil the knife, and the cut places will have a sort of granulated appearance. This, if other requisites are not wanting, is a pretty sure test of a perfect pumpkin pie. Tastes differ, but I have yet to see the first person that does not like this kind.

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1891 - Another Heartfelt Ode to the Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie!

I like this!  Of course, I may be partial to a poem the uses the botanical name for the pumpkin :-)

THAT THANKSGIVING DINNER.
How dear to our hearts is the Thanksgiving dinner,
As fond recollections presents it to view,
When father‘d come home from the raffle a winner,
And bring along with him a gobbler or two.
Ah, then in the kitchen was hurry and bustle,
Sis weeping at having the onions to shell,
And mother just making the whole of us hustle
To hasten the dinner that filled us so well;
The Thanksgiving dinner, the gorge‘us old dinner.
The big turkey dinner that filled us so well.

Oh, how can I all the ingredients measure
That dear bill of lading prescribed as our store,
The turk and his mystic abdominal treasure,
The beans and the giblets, the gravy galore,
The cider we brought in a jug from the depot,
The truck agricultural none could excel,
And ah! the lush fruit of Curcurbita pepo—
The dear pumpkin pies that we garnered so well!
Yum, yum, what a dinner! That turk and punk dinner!
That Thanksgiving dinner that crammed us so well!

                                                                                                 —Boston Courier.

I don't know about you, but the line "That turk and punk dinner" surprised me.  I don't know why exactly, but it seemed a more casual playfulness with words than I expected folks in 1891 used!  

1891 - A Recipe in Poetry for Pumpkin Pie (and a photo documentary of a pie)

I had no idea pumpkin pies have been the muse to so many poets! 

Pumpkin pie poems are coming out of the the woodwork it seems.  They each have their charm, and this one gets my applause for trying to put a recipe to verse.  

Published in Good Housekeeping, 1891.

This pumpkin was rescued  from being thrown away at school after the pumpkin season for kindergarten had ended. :-)

PUMPKIN PIES


In the kitchen fair Phyllis, one hand 'neath her chin 

   (Her dear little chin. with the dimple nicked in,) 

And a look on her face that she means to be wise,

  Sits and ponders the question of making some pies.

“Let me see, now! " she says. “there is apple and quince; 

  There is peach, there is cherry, there's lemon and mince;

But I think," here a blush a sweet secret confessed,

  “Of them all Colin’s sure to like pumpkin the best!

And though, oh dear me, they will be lots of bother,

  I know I can make them as good as his mother!

Or, perhaps he may think mine a little the best:

  How I'll smile then and say ‘Surely Colin you jest! '

While he’ll whisper.  'T'is so,’ all unheard by the rest. 

   But before I begin, there's the pumpkin to find;

I shall be sadly misled if it's not to my mind."

  So she hastens away, like the maiden of old,

To the garden, where glimmer the great globes of gold. 

  And selects one with care—quite as large and as mellow 

As once formed the coach of the good Cinderella!

  To the kitchen then back, in delight with her prize, 

And a knife for the wand of the fairy applies, 

  When, presto! the pumpkin is soon changed into pies.


HOW SHE DOES IT.

Cut the pumpkin in half, just as smooth as you can,

   And put it to bake in a clean dripping pan—

When the seeds are removed—with the skin side on top,

  In a very slow oven. ’Twill be time to stop

When you find it will scrape from the rind with a spoon,

   Like a crusty baked loaf ’twill be nicely brown soon.

Mash finely, and to one quart of pumpkin, while hot,

   Stir of butter, a quarter of a pound in the pot;

Let cool, and add to it what sugar you like;

   (Not too much or too little, a medium strike);

Then pour in a quart of milk fresh in the pan,

   ('Tis better to let it be cream if you can);

Then the yolks of four eggs, beaten well to be nice,

   With two tablespoonfuls of ginger as spice,

One of nutmeg, too. If you wish them quite comely,

   Bake in a quick oven with bottom crust only.

Of the whites of the eggs a stiff froth should now rise

   To spread over the tops. Who could wish better pies?

                                                                                 

                                                          —Adelaide Preston  

These photos were taken to show children where pumpkin pies come from.  I should have started with a field though!

1891 - All Hail King Pumpkin

  

Goodness... 

What can I say?  
The poet's own phrase "necromancy keen" sort of sums this poem up!

Good Housekeeping - 1891

1899 - Edgar Allan Poe and Pumpkin Pie

These bits and pieces turned up when I was looking for pumpkin pie poems.  

  They belong together!     

       ...

1891 - Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions, By John Henry Ingram

Unattributed poem

and I forget where I found it!