killerplants.com | Herbal Folklore | Herbal Folklore Archives Most Recent | Free Newsletter Signup

What was early American pumpkin pie?

Killer Savings Offer:

By Chelsie Vandaveer

November 18, 2002

AAA Fruit Baskets—>Click here

killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~

Suggested Reading—>Click here.

Assorted Killer Savings Garden Links—>Click here.

Killer Picks: Pumpkin Cookbook, KitchenAid 6-qt. Professional Stand Mixer—>Click here.

Making Great Gingerbread Houses, Burgundy clay Pie Dish, Marble Pastry Board—>Click here.

When explorers and settlers arrived on the American continents, they found natives with centuries of horticultural expertise and food plants already long domesticated. Among the many food plants were the pepos, fleshy berries with hard rinds—squash, gourds,
advertisement

Connecticut Field Pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo) Treat yourself to some really big jack-o-lanterns next Halloween! Connecticut Field Pumpkins are hefty orange-gold fruits weigh 15-20 pounds, have a flattened bottom to keep them from tipping. Noted for dependable yields. 110 DAYS. Click here - $20 off any order for $50 or more at Gurneys.com!

and pumpkins.

Cultivation of the pepos began around 8,000 BCE; domestication by selecting the best varieties followed and continues today. Native American gardeners brought four species or lineages of Cucurbits into domestication, C. maxima, C. mixta, C. moschata, and C. pepo. All four species have varieties that can be considered either squashes or pumpkins; two have gourds.

The 'true' pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo var. pepo) is thought to have originated in North America. It has triangular leaves, prickly stems, and peduncles (flower and fruit stem) strongly angled, almost square. Pumpkins ripen in the autumn, and outside of their use as jack-o'-lanterns, are usually baked.

In The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American (1987), Jeff Smith provides a recipe for whole baked pumpkin. Smith gives some of this dessert's background, "This dish was a favorite of George Washington. While it was called a pie in the old days, it's certainly not what we call a pie now. Here the custard pie is found inside the pumpkin...."

1 pumpkin, 5-7 pounds		½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
6 whole eggs		1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups whipping cream		¼ teaspoon ginger
½ cup brown sugar		2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon molasses

Cut the lid off the pumpkin as you would for a jack-o'-lantern. Clean out the fibers and seeds.

Mix the remaining ingredients together with the exception of the butter. Fill the pumpkin with this mixture and top with the butter. Cover with the pumpkin lid and place in a baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 to 1 ½ hours, or until the mixture has set like a custard.

Serve from the pumpkin at your table, scraping some of the meat from the pumpkin with each serving. Serves eight. Hint from personal experience: use 3 wooden toothpicks in the lid to prevent it from falling into the custard as the pumpkin bakes.

Dave's Garden website has a great page of photographs and infromation about Cucurbita pepo. To view this informative page, click on the link:

http://davesgarden.com/pdb/go/398/index.html

killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~

Unique Professionally Designed Gardens

Springhill Nursery®

Spring Hill Nursery has unique gardens professionally designed by experts to take the guesswork out of gardening. Whether you are looking for a three season garden, foundation garden, or a garden to attract hummingbirds and butterflies, Spring Hill Nursery has created a step-by-step design just for you. Click here - $20 off your first order at Spring Hill Nursery!

Single Rose Gourmet Basket

AAA Fruit Baskets®

Our wonderfully hand-delivered gourmet gift basket is adorned with a single live rose. The basket is filled with a large assortment of goodies including gourmet cheese, crackers, sausage, chocolates, and candies. Click here for price and more info...

Cooking.com

These 125 recipes celebrate the varied ways that pumpkin can enhance a wide range of dishes, from beverages, starters, and snacks to soups, salads, main courses, and of course, pies, cookies, breads, and cakes. Whether starting from the whole pumpkin (which, Stovel shows, is easier than many may think) or from canned pumpkin (a fine alternative), cooks will be surprised by the variety of ways they can use the entire fruit, inclucing blossoms and seeds, as well as the pulp itself.

Special features include complete menus and decorating and entertaining ideas for harvest celebrations and Halloween parties, as well as sidebars highlighting pumpkin festivals, lore, and growing facts. With pumpkin acreage and sales growing every year, and more health writers touting the fruit's nutritional powers, Pumpkin comes to the rescue for everyone who wants to expand their cooking repertoire. Pumpkin, A Super Food For All 12 Months Of The Year, Click here.

Cooking.com

KitchenAid's unique planetary mixing action provides faster, more thorough blending of ingredients all the way to the edge of the bowl without ever rotating it. The rugged, all-metal quality construction and commercial-style motor protection assure a long life of trouble-free, dependable and quiet operation. Other features include a professional style bowl-lift that makes it easy to lift the bowl into the mixing position, a 10-speed slide control that ranges from a very fast whip to a very slow stir and a power hub for use with attachments (sold separately). Included with the stand mixer: a stainless flat beater, PowerKnead spiral dough hook (designed to replicate hand-kneading to handle 20 percent more dough than previous models), a professional wire whip and pouring shield. KitchenAid 6-qt. Professional 600 Series Stand Mixer, Nickel Pearl, Click here.

Cooking.com

Then you'll feast your eyes on more than 40 award-winning creations, with recipes, techniques, and templates to get you ready for gingerbread building and decorating. Here's a sampling to whet your appetite: Classic Gingerbread House, Sweetshop & Florist, Totem Pole Lodge, Victorian Manor, Tree House with a Twist, Scottish Castle, and many more! Making Great Gingerbread Houses, Click here.

Cooking.com

This extra-large size is ideal for a crowd or for roasting meats and vegetables. The dish goes effortlessly from freezer to oven to table. 12-in diameter, 2.25-in. deep. Dishwasher safe. Made in France. Emile Henry 12-in. Provencale Le Grand Pie Dish, Cerise, Click here.