Pumpkin Pie

Native American origins

Native Americans were growing and eating pumpkins (Cucurbita pepo) across North America for thousands of years before European contact. Early colonists learned to cook pumpkin from Native peoples — initially as a savoury stew or baked whole in coals. The first printed American pumpkin pie recipe appears in Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery (1796 American edition), but the concept developed throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.

The custard structure

Pumpkin pie filling is an egg custard: pumpkin purée provides bulk and flavour, eggs provide the protein that sets the custard during baking, and cream or evaporated milk provides fat and silkiness. The spice blend — cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves — is called “pumpkin spice” and is one of the most recognisable flavour combinations in American food culture.

Canned pumpkin

Libby’s canned pumpkin purée, first produced in the 1920s, is the standard ingredient for American pumpkin pie. Counterintuitively, Libby’s “pumpkin” is actually made from a variety of Cucurbita moschata, a strain of butternut-type squash selected for consistency, sweetness, and dry texture — not the traditional jack-o’-lantern pumpkin.

Thanksgiving ritual

Pumpkin pie is inseparable from American Thanksgiving. Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor who campaigned for Thanksgiving to become a national holiday (Lincoln declared it so in 1863), included pumpkin pie in her vision of the traditional Thanksgiving feast.