In A Description of New Netherland, Adriaen van der Donck, an early landowner and the first lawyer in New Netherland, presented a wonderfully detailed description of the natural and cultural worlds of that Dutch colony and its environs in 1655. His observations on squashes and pumpkins, which take up much of the chapter on “Vegetables”, include the comment that “the English, who are fond of tasty food, like pumpkins very much and use them also in pies, and know how to make a beverage from them.”
The “English” referred to in van der Donck’s description were the English colonists in New England, where pumpkins were a staple of the diet. New Englanders brewed pumpkin ale, they added dried pumpkin to flips, and they stewed pumpkin as a vegetable. However, it was their pumpkin pie that, over the following centuries, went on to become an edible icon.
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Pumpkin is native to North America; it was brought to Europe as part of the “Columbian Exchange”. But, as van der Donck noted, the pumpkins growing in the New World were generally more plentiful, larger and tastier than the pumpkins produced in 17th century England or France: “pumpkins grow with little or no cultivating. They are so sweet and dry that for the purpose of preparing them water and vinegar are added before stewing them in the same way as apples…” .
Although pumpkin was cultivated—and pies filled with pumpkin were being made—in England at this time, they generally contained layers of sliced (sometimes fried) pumpkin, combined with sugar, spices and apple slices and baked between two crusts. This type of pie appears to have been made by some of the early colonists as well—but, by 1796, when Amelia Simmons’ American Cookery, the first cookbook written by an American and published in America, appeared, pumpkin pie had evolved into a familiar form that we would recognize today.
In American Cookery, Amelia Simmons included two recipes for “pompkin” pudding. This pudding, baked in a pie crust, contained a filling which was not built from sliced pumpkin, but more like more like a custard: Amelia Simmons’ pumpkin pies, like today’s, were made with stewed and strained pumpkin, eggs, sugar, cream or milk, and sometimes the addition of molasses. Flavoring was added with some of the spices popular in the colonies at that time—ginger, mace and/or nutmeg and allspice.