Ten Days of Turkey: Colonial Thanksgiving Dishes, and the History of Pumpkin Pie
Katherine Sharpe
I'm very sorry to have missed historic food reenactor Sarah Lohman's feat this past Sunday. At the Old Stone House in Park Slope, Brooklyn, Lohman hearth-cooked an entire, traditional (as in, 17th-century) Thanksgiving meal.
On the menu:
Turkey with Gravy Stewed Squab Venison Roast Sourdough Bread Squash Pudding Onions in Cream Seasonal Vegetable Plum Pudding Apple Tarts Pumpkin Pie
I don't know what recipe Ms Lohman used for her pie, but a commenter at her site left a link to a fascinating history of the pumpkin pie. Most startling revelation: the age-old Thanksgiving Day question, "pumpkin or apple?" may once have been moot! To wit: A recipe for pumpkin pie in an English cookbook called The Queen-Like Closet by Hannah Wooley (1670) directs:
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, Currans, Su|gar and Sack, and in the bottom some sharp Apples, when it is baked, butter it and serve it in.
A year later, a recipe in another English book, The Compleat Cook advised:
Pumpion Pie - Take about halfe a pound of Pumpion and slice it, a handfull of Tyme, a little Rosemary, Parsley and sweet Marjoram slipped off the stalks, and chop them smal, then take Cinamon, Nutmeg, Pepper, and six Cloves, and beat them; take ten Eggs and beat them; then mix them, and beat them altogether, and put in as much Sugar as you think fit, then fry them like a froiz; after it is fryed, let it stand till it be cold, then fill your Pye, take sliced Apples thinne round wayes, and lay a row of the Froiz, and a layer of Apples with Currans betwixt the layer while your Pye is fitted, and put in a good deal of sweet butter before you close it; when the Pye is baked, take six yolks of Eggs, some white-wine or Verjuyce, & make a Caudle of this, but not too thick; cut up the Lid and put it in, stir them well together whilst the Eggs and Pumpions be not perceived, and so serve it up.
Modern cooks who are having a hard time finding Verjuyce, or just don't trust themselves to make a decent Caudle, might try this recipe for pumpkin-apple pie in a historically accurate apples on the bottom/pumpkin on top formation. Or they could consider the "pumpple pie" (pumpkins and apples mixed together) featured in Apartment Therapy's Best Pie Bakeoff 2008.
[via Brokelyn; top image from Four Pounds Flour]
