Oct 6, 2022
“Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater, had a wife and could not feed her. So, he put her in a pumpkin shell and there he kept her very well.” –nursery rhyme.
“We have pumpkin donuts!” The sight of pumpkins and the smell of pumpkin pie spice signals the fall season of festival and comfort food has arrived. This year, pumpkin seems to be in everything, craft beer, spam, marshmallows, and specialty coffee drinks. Closely identified with what is commonly known as the “first” Thanksgiving, a harvest feast shared by Pilgrims and Native Americans, the pumpkin has been a part of our culture and history.
Pumpkin, native to North America and related to gourd, squash, and melon, is one of the first plants to be domesticated by humankind. It was a staple in the diet of tribes from the Taos Pueblo of the Southwest to the Wampanoag of the Northeast. According to Cindy Ott, author of “Pumpkin: The Curious History of an American Icon,” it would have been brought to the potluck by the Native Americans. Pumpkin, to the pilgrims, was a food of last resort, more suitable for feeding peasants often referred to as “pumpkin eaters,” and livestock, than themselves.
Pumpkin pie spice has a long history as well, with traces of nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger, found on pottery shards dating from 3,500 years on the Banda Islands of Indonesia. The pumpkin pie became official with the publication of a recipe for it in “America Cookery,” by Amelia Simmons in 1796. Over the next 67 years, the tradition of turkey with mashed potatoes, dressing, cranberries, and pumpkin pie began to take shape. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln declared the fourth Thursday in November a national holiday to give thanks.
Sara Josepha Hale, who had been homeschooled by her mother, was editor of the magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book, and has been recognized as being responsible for defining the holiday meal. She was a leader on issues important to women, such as entry into the workforce and access to education, but was also an outspoken abolitionist. Her advocacy and the timing of declaring the holiday in the same year as the Emancipation Proclamation, gave the states of the Confederacy the impression Thanksgiving was a Yankee victory celebration. To this day, sweet potato, not pumpkin, pie is preferred by many in the South.
A modern version of an English rhyme might be “pumpkin spice and all that is nice, is what girls are made of” could be Starbuck’s Coffeehouse Company’s advertising campaign to promote its Pumpkin Spice Latte. Targeting a market of upscale millennials, the promotion had the unintended consequence of the product becoming identified with “basic,” a racially impinged term for people who are conforming to a stereotype.
According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, the like or dislike of pumpkin flavor by an individual is a function of the sense of smell. That is not to suggest that ethnic, gender and regional differences have not had a part in the consumption of pumpkin, these issues are inherent in the marketing most everything. One might call it “critical pumpkin pie theory!”
“The pumpkin shows how we think about nature, ourselves, and our past. A humble vegetable that can tell all these stories.” — Cindy Ott, author.
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