Welcome to another episode of Eating the Past. I'm Laura
Gelfand, and on today's show we'll explore the fascinating history
of a traditional dessert that people either love or loathe, pumpkin
pie.
If you think that something as straightforward as pumpkin pie
doesn't offer much food for thought, then you are seriously
mistaken. In fact, this show will give you everything you need to be
the biggest bore at this year's thanksgiving dinner. So let's go!
Pumpkins were first cultivated in Central America around 5500 BCE,
and they were one of the first foods to be brought back from the
new world, Arriving in Europe in 1536 CE., just in time for the
reformation! In England they were called 'pumpions,' after the
French word 'pompom,' an obvious nod to their bulbous shape.
The English love of pies meant that pumpkins quickly became part of
the cuisine and the mayflower pilgrims would certainly have known
about these lovely orange gourds before coming to North America.
By the early 18111 century pumpkin pie was already an established part
of Thanksgiving when Thanksgiving was a regional feast celebrated
primarily in New England.
Now here's where things get interesting: in the mid-19tn century
pumpkin pie got political. many of the most prominent abolitionists
were from New England, and they worked for decades to have
Thanksgiving declared a national holiday Thanksgiving, together
with the traditional pumpkin pie, featured in anti-slavery novels,
pamphlets, and poems.
When Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863,
it was largely thanks to the pro-Thanksgiving campaign waged by
abolitionist, pumpkin-lover, and home economics icon, Sarah
Josepha Hale.
However, those on the confederate side saw Thanksgiving as an
imposition of Yankee traditions on the south. one editorialist from
Virgina described the holiday as "an annual custom of that people
heretofore celebrated with devout oblations to themselves of
pumpkin pie and roast turkey" pumpkin pie was a powerful weapon in
the war of northern cultural aggression.
According to Cindy Ott, author of Pumpkin: The Curious History of an
American Icon, abolitionists saw a sharp contrast between small
northern pumpkin farms and the immorality of huge southern
plantations. Thus, pumpkin pie was enmeshed in identity politics as it
was associated with a better, more moral way of living.
After the Civil War ended, some southern states continued to balk at
recognizing the Thanksgiving holiday, including Texas, which
refused to celebrate it for twenty years. It seems crazy, but
Thanksgiving only became a federal holiday in 1941.
Given all of this, it seems to me it's tlme we revise the common saying
and start describing things as being as American as pumpkin pie.
Tune in next week for even more ammo to make yourself a
world-class know-it-all at this year's Thanksgiving dinner. Join us
for Eating the Past every Sunday at noon, right before The Splendid Table, on your UPR station.
