Pumpkin pie is a dessert pie with a spiced,
pumpkin
A pumpkin is a cultivar, cultivated winter squash in the genus ''Cucurbita''. The term is most commonly applied to round, orange-colored squash varieties, but does not possess a scientific definition. It may be used in reference to many dif ...
-based
custard
Custard is a variety of culinary preparations based on sweetened milk, cheese, or cream cooked with Eggs as food, egg or egg yolk to thicken it, and sometimes also flour, corn starch, or gelatin. Depending on the recipe, custard may vary in con ...
filling. The pumpkin and pumpkin pie are both a symbol of harvest time, and pumpkin pie is generally eaten during the fall and early winter. In the United States and Canada it is usually prepared for
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in October and November in the United States, Canada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Germany. It is also observed in the Australian territory ...
,
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a Religion, religious and Culture, cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by coun ...
, and other occasions when pumpkin is in season.
The pie's filling ranges in color from orange to brown and is baked in a single pie shell, usually without a top crust. The pie is generally flavored with
pumpkin pie spice, a blend that includes
cinnamon
Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus ''Cinnamomum''. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, biscuits, b ...
,
ginger
Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of l ...
,
nutmeg
Nutmeg is the seed, or the ground spice derived from the seed, of several tree species of the genus '' Myristica''; fragrant nutmeg or true nutmeg ('' M. fragrans'') is a dark-leaved evergreen tree cultivated for two spices derived from its fru ...
, and
clove
Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, ''Syzygium aromaticum'' (). They are native to the Maluku Islands, or Moluccas, in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice, flavoring, or Aroma compound, fragrance in fin ...
s or
allspice. The pie is usually prepared with canned pumpkin, but fresh-cooked pumpkin can be used.
Overview

Cooked and puréed pumpkin flesh is mixed with eggs,
evaporated milk, sugar, and spices.
The pie is then baked in a pie shell and sometimes topped with
whipped cream
Whipped cream, also known as Chantilly cream or (), is high-fat dairy cream that has been aerated by whisking until it becomes light, fluffy, and capable of holding its shape. This process incorporates air into the cream, creating a semi-soli ...
or
marshmallows.
Pies made from fresh pumpkins typically use
sugar pumpkins, also known as pie pumpkins, which measure about in diameter, approximately the size of a large grapefruit.
They are considerably smaller than the typically larger varieties used to carve
jack o'lanterns, contain significantly less pulp, and have a less stringy texture.
Other pumpkin varieties or related winter squashes, such as
butternut squash, are sometimes used. The flesh is roasted until soft and puréed before being blended with the other ingredients.
Pumpkin pies are often made from
canned pumpkin purée.
Libby's canned pumpkin, the most popular brand, uses the
Dickinson pumpkin variety of ''
Cucurbita moschata
''Cucurbita moschata'' is a species originating in the tropical Americas which is cultivated for edible flesh, flowers, greens, and seeds. It includes cultivars known in English as squash or pumpkin. Cultivars of ''C. moschata'' are generally m ...
'' solely, though other brands can include any of a number of varieties of ''
Cucurbita pepo
''Cucurbita pepo'' is a cultivated plant of the genus ''Cucurbita''. It yields varieties of winter squash and pumpkin, but the most widespread varieties belong to the subspecies ''Cucurbita pepo'' subsp. ''pepo'', called summer squash.
It has b ...
'' or ''
Cucurbita maxima
''Cucurbita maxima'', one of at least five species of cultivated Squash (plant), squash, is one of the most diverse domesticated species. This species originated in South America from the wild subspecies ''Cucurbita maxima subsp. andreana'' over ...
''.
Packaged pumpkin pie filling with sugar and spices already included is also sold.
Sweet potato pie uses a similar recipe, with mashed
sweet potato
The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant in the morning glory family, Convolvulaceae. Its sizeable, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a root vegetable, which is a staple food in parts of ...
instead of pumpkin.
History

The pumpkin is native to
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...
. The pumpkin was an early export to
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
; from there it was introduced to
Tudor England, and the flesh of the "pompion" was quickly accepted as pie filling. The Columbian Exchange is credited with the fusion of ingredients needed to create pumpkin pie. Those ingredients consisted of European wheat, North American pumpkins, and sugar from the Canary Islands. During the seventeenth century, pumpkin pie recipes with the pumpkin sliced, fried and then baked in a pie crust with butter, sugar and raisins could be found in English cookbooks, such as
Hannah Woolley's ''The Gentlewoman's Companion and The Queen-like Closet''
[Andrew F. Smith]
"Pumpkins"
, ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America''. Ed. Gordon Campbell. Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, 2003. Saint Mary's College of California. December 21, 2011. Pumpkin "pies" made by early
American colonists were more likely to be
a savory soup made and served in a pumpkin than a sweet custard in a crust. Pumpkins were also stewed and made into ale by colonists.
An early appearance of a more modern, custard-like pumpkin pie was in ''American Cookery'', a cookbook published in 1796. It used a sweet custard filling in a
pie crust, with spices similar to the ones used today.
It was not until the early nineteenth century that recipes appeared in Canadian cookbooks,
or that pumpkin pie became a common addition to the
Thanksgiving dinner.
The Pilgrims brought the pumpkin pie back to New England. In the United States after the Civil War, the pumpkin pie was resisted in Southern states as a symbol of Yankee culture imposed on the South, where there was no tradition of eating pumpkin pie.
[ Many Southern cooks instead made sweet potato pie, or added bourbon and pecans to give the pumpkin pie a Southern touch.]
Today, throughout much of Canada and the United States, it is traditional to serve pumpkin pie after Thanksgiving dinner.
Pumpkin pies were discouraged from Thanksgiving dinners in the United States in 1947 as part of a voluntary egg rationing
Rationing is the controlled distribution (marketing), distribution of scarcity, scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resourc ...
campaign promoted by the Truman Administration
Harry S. Truman's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 33rd president of the United States began on April 12, 1945, upon the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and ended on January 20, 1953. He had been Vice President ...
, mainly because of the eggs used in the recipe. This was a part of President Truman's Citizen's Food Committee task force, designed to ration food consumption in the United States in hopes to provide more foreign food assistance to Europe post World War II. Part of the campaign included an "Egg-less & Poultry-less Thursday", which began in October 1947, and with Thanksgiving Day always occurring on a Thursday, there was a considerable backlash among American consumers against this. Truman was true to his word, and no pumpkin pie was served at the White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...
for Thanksgiving in 1947.
In popular culture
Poetry
* Lydia Maria Child's Thanksgiving poem " Over the River and Through the Wood" (1844) references pumpkin pie in one of its verses: "Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done? / Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!"
* Mathew Franklin Whittier, signing as "A Yankee," wrote in his poem "Song of the Pumpkin" (1846):
Songs
* Oscar Ferdinand Telgmann and George Frederick Cameron wrote the song "Farewell O Fragrant Pumpkin Pie" in the opera
Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically ...
'' Leo, the Royal Cadet'' (1889):
*The Christmas-themed song " There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays" makes a reference to homemade pumpkin pie being looked forward to by a man returning to his family's home in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
.
* The popular Christmas song " Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" contains the lyric, "Later we'll have some pumpkin pie/And we'll do some caroling".
*" Sleigh Ride", another popular Christmas song, also mentions sitting around a fire after being out in the snow and eating pumpkin pie.
Records
The world's largest pumpkin pie was made in New Bremen, Ohio, at the New Bremen Pumpkinfest on September 25, 2010. The pie consisted of of canned pumpkin, of evaporated milk, 2,796 eggs, of salt, of cinnamon, and of sugar. The final pie weighed and measured in diameter.
Image gallery
File:Pumpkin Pie from a *real* pumpkin, November 2007.jpg, A homemade pumpkin pie prepared using fresh pumpkin
File:2019-02-17 21 16 11 Half of a pumpkin pie in the Franklin Farm section of Oak Hill, Fairfax County, Virginia.jpg, Cross-section view of a commercially prepared pumpkin pie
File:One-pie pumpkin.jpg, A can of pureed pumpkin, typically used as the main ingredient in the pie filling
See also
* List of pies
* List of squash and pumpkin dishes
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pumpkin Pie
American pies
British pies
Canadian desserts
Christmas food
Cuisine of the Midwestern United States
Custard desserts
Halloween food
New England cuisine
Squash and pumpkin desserts
Sweet pies
Symbols of Illinois
Thanksgiving food