- It's just so fun.
Ow!
(gentle music)
Hello, and welcome back to "Edible History,"
the show that makes history palatable.
Today we're taking a special look at holiday history,
particularly the history carved out
by the one and only pumpkin pie.
No holiday celebrates food quite like Thanksgiving.
But behind every Thanksgiving turkey,
there's the holiday's actual star, pumpkin pie.
But I certainly doubt the first pies came
from pre-mashed pumpkin bits in a can.
To patch up my understanding of pumpkin pie history,
I'm talking with Paul Freedman,
a Professor of History at Yale and the author of
"American Cuisine and How It Got This Way."
Paul, thank you so much for being here.
Today we're talking about pumpkin pie,
and that's a little bit of a tasty dish.
So how far back does the history of the pumpkin pie go?
- It goes back to probably the 17th/18th century.
Pumpkin is a New World product.
So pretty much after the discovery of the New World
and after the growth of traffic back and forth,
it appears in European recipes.
- Was the original pumpkin pie more of a sweet dish
or a savory dish?
- It wouldn't be as sweet as it is now.
Everything now is sweeter than in the past.
The pumpkin pie of the colonial era
would not have been custardy or soft
the way we're used to.
The pumpkin's in slices.
- And has it always been a holiday dish?
You know, for me, when I think of pumpkin pie,
I think of Thanksgiving.
It's kind of how I let myself know
I need to start Christmas shopping.
- Same here.
But Thanksgiving itself wasn't celebrated nationally
until it was proclaimed as a holiday during the Civil War.
After the Civil War, there's a whole revival of interest
in the colonial era, and instead of it being
when we were poor,
it becomes kind of an object of fashion and sentimentality.
- So is there anything about this recipe in particular
you can tell me?
- So the recipe is from a family named Gardner,
well-off people in Boston.
The colonists didn't really like New World products.
They kind of wanted to live like Europeans.
So the recipe that we're gonna use has apple slices
as well as pumpkin slices.
The final unusual thing about it is that
the recipe calls for large quantities.
Presumably, there are lots and lots of people
who want to eat these pies, so the quantity is pretty large.
- Paul, I feel pretty well prepared
in my pursuit of pumpkin pie.
Wow, I'm just impressed that I got out of my mouth.
Anyway, we're gonna start cooking.
(upbeat music)
We'll be using the recipe for a pumpkin pie
from Mrs. Gardner's receipts from 1763.
Need the receipts?
She's got 'em.
Now we have to tread carefully here though.
There's a recipe for eel pie on the same page.
(upbeat music)
The first step is to pare and core
a quarter of 100 apples, a.k.a. 25.
There are less convenient ways to say that.
Two dozen plus one apples.
Five less than 30 apples.
Five more than 20 apples.
First things first, you're gonna cut off the little top.
You're gonna cut off the little bottom.
Then you're gonna try and look cool
by peeling and apple with one hand
like you're a pirate on a ship.
If that doesn't work, then you'll stop.
(dramatic music)
Mm!
We have more apples, right?
(upbeat music)
Now it's time to slice your apple.
One apple down, only six less than 30 to go.
How 'bout them apples?
(upbeat music)
Now that you've got your quarter of 100 apples,
it's time to take your 12th of a dozen pumpkins
and start slicin'.
(upbeat music)
The first step is to de-seed your pumpkin.
For this, we're gonna take off the top.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ooh, eh, eh.
Did you guys hear that shink?
(unsheathing)
(upbeat music)
Then remove the top.
Voila!
Take a spoon and scoop out all of the seeds
inside your pumpkin.
There's nothing quite like the smell
that comes from de-seeding a pumpkin.
Can I just say, this looks gourd-geous?
(cymbal crashes)
Cut off the bottom.
Hoo!
Next, we're gonna cut our pumpkin into quarters.
Yeah, baby.
Oh wow.
A little of this.
Okay.
You could take your smaller knife
and gently remove the last of your innards.
Now we cut 'em into smaller pieces.
And now peel off the edges.
One piece is done.
Now the rest.
One-sixth of 360 minutes later,
I have now perfected my pumpkin-peeling performance.
I hope I never peel a pumpkin again.
Now that we've got everything peeled and ready to rock,
we're gonna set this aside
and gets started on making our dough.
The recipe calls for a gallon of flour.
So this is a gallon of flour.
First let's add our salt.
Dan-dah-dah-dah.
Next, we're gonna be adding our very cold butter.
It's important to keep your butter cold,
because that's crucial in the lamination process.
You're gonna blend it together using your hands
to just kind of marry the butter and the flour.
Okay, that looks perfect.
Now it's time to add half of your water.
Ooh.
Beautiful.
Make into a light paste with cold water,
just stiff enough to work it well up.
Oh, very distracting sensation.
Next, we're gonna add the last of our water.
Eh.
Beautiful.
(triumphant music)
We'll give this dough a little more kneading time,
and then we'll be ready to roll.
Also, I'm gonna wash my hands.
Now it's time to start rolling out our dough.
So first things first, getting the dough out of the bowl.
Come on.
Smooth as silk.
I'm gonna put a little flour on my hands.
I don't want them to be terribly sticky.
The dough we're making here
is a little bit more like a puff pastry,
because we're gonna be adding a lot of butter to it
and folding it a bunch of times.
Beautiful.
Now it's time to add our butter.
We're gonna put it on half of our dough, fold it over.
Why do I always explain things?
Let me just show you.
Add our chilly, chilly butter.
Plop, plop, plop, plop, plop.
Beautiful.
Next, the recipe says that we will be
strewing a little flour upon it
from a dredging box or your hand.
A peep, peep, peep.
Peep, peep, peep, peep, peep.
Peep, peep, peep, peep, peep, peep, peep, peep, peep.
Yes, yes, yes.
Yes.
Now the hard part.
We're gonna lift up this half of our dough
and gently fold it over our butter.
Yeah.
Add a little bit more flour.
This dredger is really getting a lot of moments to shine.
Then we're gonna turn our dough.
Oy, oy, oy, ah!
We roll it back out.
And then start the whole process over
and do it eight or nine more times.
The recipe says that we need to incorporate
a pound and a half of butter.
So we'll be doing this for a minute.
And that is the end of rolling dough.
So take your arms and rest them.
Our next step is to slice our beautifully laminated dough
in half because we will need both a top and a bottom
for our pie.
All right, these are all ready.
We're gonna keep 'em cool and finish our filling.
(upbeat music)
Let's dough this.
We have our beautiful giant dough,
and we need to put it in this giant pot.
Our basic goal is we want to cover the whole bottom
of this beautiful cast iron pot without breaking our dough.
Let me lift this up, put this under.
Oh, oh no.
Stay.
Our next step is to lay a half pound of good, clean sugar
over the bottom of our dish.
Dee, dee, dee.
Good, clean sugar.
That's gonna be what makes it taste good.
Next we're gonna start layering in our apples.
I will say I'm surprised
by the lack of spices in this recipe.
I anticipated there'd be cinnamon, clove, nutmeg.
So far, it's just fruit and sugar.
And a lot of butter.
Now that you've got your layer of apples,
it's time to add your pumpkin.
Sprinkle on some pumpkin pieces,
another sprinkling of sugar,
and it's time for our next layer of apples.
(gentle music)
One last heaping helping of sugar,
and we're ready to tuck this baby in.
Now it's time to take off the excess dough.
So we're gonna cut around the edge and set that dough aside.
Remove.
Thank you.
Beautiful.
Ta-da!
Plop.
I'm gonna go grab our next layer of dough for the top.
If you know an easier way to transport dough, let me know.
Next, we gently unfurl, hold on.
Hello, little dough baby.
We gently unroll our circle onto the top.
Almost perfect.
There.
Awesome.
To seal on our top, we're gonna pinch down
all the excess we left on the sides of the fruit.
When we were talking to Paul
and he mentioned how much pie they would make
and it would last and last and last, I didn't get it.
Now I do.
We're gonna cut some slits for air vents.
The slits are for letting some of the steam out.
Plus, they look really pretty.
And give it a gentle egg wash.
For those of you who don't know
and have been too scared to ask,
an egg wash is just a beaten egg that you simply brush
all over your delicious thing you're making.
Frankly, I'm pretty excited to try it.
I mean, I'm a big fan of apple pie,
and this seems like we're making more of an apple pie
than a pumpkin pie.
That looks good to me.
Last but not least, we're gonna take this thing to bake.
We are gonna take this thing to bake.
Can I get a little help?
(upbeat music)
Oh!
Whoo!
Fresh from the oven, and ready for some lovin'.
Mm.
I gotta tell you guys, this pie smells absolutely amazing.
Not only does this pie smell fantastic,
it looks beautiful.
You know, I always thought that pumpkin pie
was just one thing.
Turns out, pie's the limit.
(cymbal crashes)
Now that we're done baking, there's just one last step.
The recipe says, "Before you send it to the table,
"cut it open and put in some good, fresh butter."
It's like treating a slice of pie like a piece of toast.
Delicious.
To insert our butter, we're gonna gently reopen our slices.
Hello, hello.
My mouth is watering.
It smells like a fresh-baked pie.
We're gonna gently peel back one corner of the puff pastry
and slide in our butter.
Beautiful.
Effortless.
Hard to believe there's a quarter of 100 apples in here.
Slidey, slidey, yummy, yummy in my tummy.
You can tell that pie did bake down quite a bit.
It's a lot shorter than I remember,
but whoo, smells even better.
All right.
Last but not least, we gotta set it aside to cool,
and then we get to see if this Boston-based baked good
actually tastes good.
Okay, it's the magic moment.
Time to figure out how to take out a slice of this pie.
Let's do it.
There's so much butter in this thing,
it's basically like a non-stick surface now.
Okay.
Now the moment of truth.
(suspenseful music)
It's exceptionally hard to dig a pie out
of a deep cast iron pot.
Changing my approach.
There we go.
Oh!
Oh.
We have achieved pie!
This looks incredible.
What a beautiful, beautiful baked good.
I almost don't want to eat it 'cause it's so perfect.
Okay, here we go, moment of truth.
History in the making.
History in the baking?
This is delicious.
Simple, yet effective.
It's like apple pie meets pumpkin pie.
I was worried that the texture variation would be too weird.
You know, like the squishy apple and the chunky pumpkin?
But honestly, they balance out.
And the puff pastry crust?
What a dream come true.
It is very different from the modern-day pumpkin pie.
I will say that the one thing I miss
is like the nutmeg, the cinnamon.
I miss those spices that we so heavily associate with fall.
It's definitely not as sweet as pumpkin pie,
but frankly, I like that.
And I love the texture.
I mean, I love this pie.
Yum.
Thanks for watching this episode of "Edible History."
Let us know if you would give this pie a try
by leaving a comment in the comments below.
Seriously, would you make this for Thanksgiving?
I genuinely want to know.