Here in America Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, and that means football, familial arguments ,
and fattening ourselves up on turkey stuffing and pumpkin pie.
So today we are making one of the first recipes for that dessert:
pumpion pie.
That's right, a recipe so old that they hadn't even added the 'k' yet.
Pumpion pie, this time
on Tasting History.
Today's recipe comes from the 1670 cookbook "The Queene-like Closet" by Hannah Wolley.
"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, currants, sugar and
sack, and in the bottom some sharp apples. When it is baked butter it and serve it in.
So this is a good example of why sometimes
with historic recipes they need to like really kind of be reordered
uh because she talks about putting the pumpkin, and the sugar and all of the ingredients
into the pie, and then she says oh, by the way there also needs to be apples underneath all
of that filling. So if you were going in order you'd be pretty aggravated trying to slip
apples underneath that wet pumpkin filling.
Anyway, for today's recipe you will need
one sugar or pie pumpkin,
two sharp apples.
I used granny smith but really any apple is going to do just fine for this.
Three eggs,
two handfuls of freshly minced herbs.
Now she's not specific as to what herbs to use.
I am using rosemary, thyme, and parsley
because there are other contemporary pumpkin pie recipes that do
mention what to use. Some of them also mentioned sweet marjoram but I couldn't find any for that, so
use whatever you like.
6 tablespoons or 85 grams of salted butter.
1/3 cup or 50 grams of raisins,
1 3 cup or 50 grams of currants,
1 half cup or 100 grams of sugar,
1/4 cup or 60 milliliters sac or sherry,
and then some sort of crust.
She's not specific as to what crust to use. She mentions
different crusts throughout the book so it's kind of anyone's guess.
What we do know simply from reading other recipes
in the book is that she's not talking about a self-standing crust, which
she refers to as a coffin. This would definitely be made in a dish.
She also talks about covering
or lidding up pies throughout the book. So since she doesn't talk about that in this recipe we can
infer that this has no top.
So first set your oven to 425 degrees fahrenheit or 220 degrees celsius
Then line a pie dish with your dough.
Now at this point it's really up to you if you want to blind
bake this crust. It's actually not necessary for this recipe, um I didn't but it's always a good
practice (I probably should have), so go ahead and do it if you want but really it's up to you.
Now it's time to seed and pare our pumpkins,
and I can just tell you right now it's a bit of a pain in the pumpion.
First slice off the top stem trying to cut as little of the pumpkin flesh as possible.
Now with either a knife or a potato peeler peel the skin off of the pumpkin. Then going down the
Then going down the middle carefully slice the pumpkin in two.
I nearly lost a finger so be careful.
Then with a spoon carve out the seeds and the guts of the pumpkin.
Peel off the pumpkin skin, rip out its guts.
It's really quite violent and macabre isn't it?
Anyway those seeds of course you can go
ahead and eat, especially if you have a tapeworm.
Allow me to elucidate.
In an article from 1892 Dr H. Roemer recommends the peeled seeds of the common pumpkin
as an effective and safely acting taeniafue.
The result is astonishingly good. The writer has expelled over 100 tapeworms in this manner.
So yeah, gets rid of tapeworms. That's pretty cool,
and I guess it actually works due to the bitter resin in the seeds,
but you know what if you have a parasite I'd still recommend going to a doctor.
Anyway once your pumpkin is cleaned of its seeds
go ahead and slice the halves again and make yourself
a little pac-man. *waka waka
Then once you're done playing with your food go ahead and slice it up.
Now you want to make sure these slices are fairly thin so the pumpkin gets cooked all the way through.
Next go ahead and peel your apples,
core them,
and slice them thin just as you did the pumpkin.
Then set a large skillet over medium heat and melt two tablespoons of the butter.
Now depending on how much pumpkin you end up having you may need more than two tablespoons.
You can also use oil, she's actually not specific.
In fact she probably used lard so if you got lard go ahead and use that.
But yeah just be flexible just enough to get it fried.
Now while that heats up go ahead and beat your eggs,
and then mix in the herbs.
Then dip the pumpkin slices into the egg.
When you take them out
try to get some of the herbs but try not to get too much of the egg,
because the egg ends up just kind of scrambling if you get too much.
Then place them in the hot skillet.
Now depending on the size of the pumpkin,
and the size of your skillet you may need to do this in a couple batches,
just so everything gets cooked. She just says fry it till it be enough, very helpful Miss Wooly but
I don't know what that means. What I took it as is
pretty much cooked all the way through until it's fairly soft,
so that when you're mixing it with the other ingredients
it mixes rather than like still having slices of pumpkin.
I fried mine for about 10 minutes which did the trick.
Once all of your pumpkin is fried put the slices into a large bowl,
and add two more tablespoons of the butter holding back the final two for once the pie is baked.
Then add the raisins, the currants, the sugar and the sac or sherry,
and mix everything together.
Then line the bottom of your prepared pie crust with the apple slices,
and pour the pumpkin filling over it smoothing the top.
Then set it in the oven.
Now you're going to bake that for about 20 minutes at that full temperature,
and then you're going to reduce the temperature to 375 degrees Fahrenheit,
or 190 celsius and bake for another 40 to 50 minutes.
Now while our pie bakes make sure to hit that Subscribe button
as we tuck in to the history of pumpkin pie.
Now to get to the history of pumpkin pie we have to start with
the history of pumpkins.
It would have been weird if I had said anything else there.
Pumpkins were first cultivated
in southern Mexico and Central America around 5000 BC.
The Aztecs would stuff the flesh of the fruit
into folded corn tortillas and then bake them a bit like an early cheeseless quesadilla.
And one of the first foods mentioned by the Spanish on their arrival in the Yucatan
was for a Mayan dish called papadzules,
which were corn tortillas dipped in a pepita or pumpkin seed sauce.
A modern version that's stuffed is still made today in the same area.
Now the Spanish must have loved these pumpkin,
because they're one of the first fruits that they brought back to Europe to grow.
Now the first recipes that I could find for 'pumpkin pie'
came from the Opera di Bartolomeo Scappi from 1570.
Now I went into detail about this amazing and famous cookbook just a few weeks ago so if you
missed that episode uh there's a link up here and in the description, make sure to watch it.
It was really, really interesting if I do say so myself.
Anyway Scappi has several different recipes for pumpkin torts
or cakes or pies the meaning is kind of nebulous at that point.
One of them has pumpkin
and onions so kind of savory,
and then one of them is made with pumpkin and creamy cheeses,
and eggs and sugar and kind of sounds like an early pumpkin cheesecake,
and I really think i need to make that. :)
Now at school I was taught that just 50 years after Scappi was making his pumpkin pies
the pilgrims and the Wampanoag/Wôpanâak were eating their own pumpkin pie
at that very first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock.
That is incorrect.
In fact there were a lot of things that school totally got wrong
about that meal and everything surrounding it but that's for a different episode.
Maybe next year i'll go into detail and kind of go off on that,
but all i'll say for now is that they were
definitely not eating pumpkin pies or any pies at that first Thanksgiving because
they didn't have any flour for crust, they didn't have any sugar for filling and they didn't have ovens for baking.
In fact they were rather woefully unprepared for their trip to the New World.
I would say that the venture seemed a little half-baked
but you'd need an oven for that.
But while they didn't eat pumpkin pie,
they did eat pumpkin because the Wampanoag/Wôpanâak had been growing them in the area for centuries,
and they not only ate the pumpkin but they used the pumpkin itself
as a serving vessel. Kind of like a pumpkin bowl,
and all the way through the 19th century that was a very popular way of using pumpkins to serve
other pies, or pumpkin pies, or pumpkin soups inside of the baked pumpkin.
Now soon after the pilgrims did not eat pumpkin pie, the French and the English did.
Likely influenced by Scappi in 1651 François Pierre de la Varenne
published his seminal work "Le Cusinier françois"
which laid the foundations for French gastronomy and it had effects on French cuisine
which rippled down to us even to this day.
I really think that I should do an entire episode just on this book so if you'd
like to see that let me know in the comments.
His recipe for 'Torte de Pompion' called for boiling
the pumpkin in milk and then filling a pie paste with it, sugar, butter, and almonds.
Hm! C'est magnifique, non?
Two years later his cookbook was translated into english and it influenced British cookbooks for centuries to come.
Pretty much every book after that point had some recipe for a pumpkin pie,
and in 1685 we finally see a rather familiar flavor profile accompany the pumpkin.
In Robert May's "The Accomplisht Cook"
he adds cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove
then all you have to add is a little bit of ginger and pumpkin spice would be born.
Hey Robert May there's a new announcement,
you're basic.
But even with Mr. May's addition of an early pumpkin spice flavor
these pumpkin pies wouldn't be anything like you'd recognize today,
and that's because today we eat pumpkin custard pies and to get one of those
we have to cross back over the pond to America.
In one of the great early American cookbooks "American Cookery"
published in 1796 Amelia Simmons includes two recipes for pompkin pie.
Two points for Amelia for the addition of a k
minus one for spelling pumpkin with an o,
but spelling aside these recipes are the first time
that we really see a pumpkin custard pie and after that that becomes
the standard for a pumpkin pie,
and it becomes a focal point of New England holiday traditions.
See, Thanksgiving even after the pilgrims stuck around
but only in New England. There are numerous 19th century references
from New England to the holiday, and to pumpkin pie itself.
Famously in Lydia Maria Child's poem "Over the River and Through the Woods"
which ends "Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for pumpkin pie."
And in the 1827 novel "Northwood" by Sarah Josepha Hale.
Speaking of Thanksgiving she says.
"There was a huge plum pudding, custards, and pies of every name and description
ever known in Yankee land; yet the pumpkin pie occupied the most distinguished niche."
Fun fact, Miss Hale also wrote
"Mary had a little lamb."
Anyway both of those mentions seem charming and innocuous
but they actually ended up being rather political.
See both authors were well-known abolitionists
and so not much loved by the southern states
and at the same time Ms. Hale was petitioning presidents
to have the New England tradition of Thanksgiving become a national holiday.
Well the southern states took umbrage and they wanted nothing to do with abolition,
nor the New England holiday of Thanksgiving,
nor that infernal Yankee pumpkin pie.
They had their sweet potato pies,
and the pumpkin pie sweet potato pie Cold War still rages on in households to this day
every Thanksgiving.
It was only in 1863 after 17 years of trying to get the holiday nationalized that
Abraham Lincoln finally listened to Ms. Hale and declared the last Thursday of November
a national day of Thanksgiving.
Now before we get back to our own pumpion pie I want to leave you with the lyrics
to a young soldier's ballad professing his love of pumpkin pie.
From the 1889 Canadian light opera
"Leo, the Royal Cadet"
"Farewell, o fragrant pumpkin pie! Dyspeptic pork, adieu!
Though to the college halls I hie.
On field of battle though I die,
my latest sob, my latest sigh shall wafted be to you!
And my love - my little Nell, the apple of my eye
to thee how can I say farewell?
I love thee more than I can tell;
I love thee more than anything -
but pie!"
Now I would have sung that but I couldn't
find the music to the opera just the lyrics so if anyone has the sheet music or a recording of
"Leo the Royal Cadet", please send it my way.
Anyway let's get our pumpkin pie out of the oven.
So start checking the pie around 40 minutes,
and once you see it's nice and bubbly on the top
take it out of the oven
and put the last two tablespoons of butter on the top, and then let it cool.
Now I am excited to see what our 400 year old pumpkin pie recipe tastes like,
but if you're looking for something a little more traditional, yet still historical,
I am going to link to my friend Jill's channel "YesterKitchen"
where she delves into the history and stories behind recipes from
America in the 1940s through the 1980s, isn't that right Jill?
That's right Max, on YesterKitchen I will be making
a spectacular boozy pumpkin pie
from the man, the myth, the legend himself James beard,
and of courseIi'll be talking a little bit about this food icon's extraordinary career.
I will see you over there.
So for Jill's version of pumpkin pie
make sure to click on her video which is down in the description.
As for ours, it is time to eat. :D
So here it is,
pumpion pie.
It obviously looks very different from a modern day pumpkin pie.
It's much more layered, I mean well it's not a custard,
so you know it's more like a bit of a jumble but it's kind of pretty,
it's very orange actually more orange I think than a modern-day pumpkin pie.
Let's give it a shot here.
*_*
Hm, hm, hm!
That is SO good.
Oh that is so good.
So much of the apple is coming through, you get the pumpkin but you get the apple
and what a wonderful combination.
Why don't we put apple in pumpkin pie anymore?
It's a perfect combo.
Even though it's not smooth like a custard pumpkin pie,
it sticks together.
It's not like falling apart or anything, and it's soft, and wow I actually might like
this more than regular pumpkin pie, and I love regular pumpkin pie.
This is fan-friggin-tastic
And the bottom is cooked. I didn't pre-bake it or blind bake it, it's cooked.
But go ahead and do it if you feel more comfortable.
Either way this is so delicious
You gots to make this.
Make this for Thanksgiving, make this after Thanksgiving,
make this any time of the year if you can find pumpkins.
Maybe stick to around Thanksgiving I suppose.
Anyway, make sure to Like this video
and I will see you next time on Tasting History.
This seriously so good.
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