From America to Europe and back to America.
Pumpkins were first served by Native Americans to early colonists resulting in the love for the orange gourd. Learn the pumpkin pie history and how it traveled repeated across the Atlantic Ocean to become the famous Thanksgiving dessert that we know of today.
Pumpkin Pie History
To start, pumpkins first came from Central America in 5500 B.C. It was one of the first foods brought from the Americas to France in the Columbian Exchange in the early 1500s. From France, the orange gourd was further popularized in England where it was first mentioned in written documents in 1536.
A century later in 1653, a French cookbook included the pumpkin in a sweet pastry recipe in which the pumpkin was boiled in milk, strained, and then baked in a crust.
Then, in 1670 an English cookbook described layers of pumpkin with apples, rosemary, thyme, and marjoram stuffed in a pastry.
Years later, in 1796 an American cookbook, The American Cookery, wrote a recipe for the pumpkin pie we are more familiar with today using spices imported from all over the world.
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