Pumpkin pie

“ I can't pretend to describe Harriet's dinner: the gorgeous brown goose, and the apple sauce, and all the other things that best go with it, and the pumpkin pie at the end—the finest, thickest, most delicious pumpkin pie I ever ate in all my life. It melted in one's mouth and brought visions of celestial bliss. And I wish I could have a picture of Harriet presiding. I have never seen her happier, or more in her element. Every time she brought in a new dish or took off a cover it was a sort of miracle. ”

“ If you like them plain, put to a quart of the pumpkin one quart of milk, and three eggs. The thicker the pie is of the pumpkin, the less will be the number of eggs required for them. One egg, with a table-spoonful of flour, will answer for a quart of the pumpkin, if very little milk is used. Sweeten the pumpkin with sugar, and very little molasses—the sugar and eggs should be beaten together. Ginger, the grated rind of a lemon, or nutmeg, is good spice for the pies. Pumpkin pies require a very hot oven. The rim of the pies is apt to get burnt before the inside is baked sufficiently. ”

“ Pumpkin Pie.—Peel a ripe pumpkin and chip off the rind or skin, halve it, and take out the seed and fluffy part in the centre, which throw away. Cut the pumpkin into small, thin slices, fill a pie-dish therewith, add to it half a teaspoonful of allspice and a tablespoonful of sugar, with a small quantity of water. Cover with a nice light paste and bake in the ordinary way. ”

“ Not merely the old traditional mince pie, but a thousand strictly American seedlings from that main stock, evinced the power of American housewives to adapt old institutions to new uses. Pumpkin pies, cranberry pies, huckleberry pies, cherry pies, green-currant pies, peach, pear, and plum pies, custard pies, apple pies, Marlborough-pudding pies—pies with top crusts and pies without—pies adorned with all sorts of fanciful flutings and architectural strips laid across and around, and otherwise varied, attested the boundless fertility of the feminine mind when once let loose in a given direction. ”

“ The pumpkin is out of place in the small garden because of its rampant growth, but a few plants of the New England Pie variety should be grown wherever there is room for it, to supply material for the delicious pumpkin pies most of us enjoy so much in winter. ”

“ To those who have refined palates it makes a world of difference whether their apple pie and sauce are made of "cooking apples" or of Gravensteins, Red Astrachans, Newtown Pippins, or Spitzenbergs. Each variety—and dozens of others might be named—has its own special charm; and the same is true of pies and sauces made of other fruits.
In the baking of pumpkin pie, which, next to that made of apples, is perhaps the most characteristically American pie, mace (which is derived from the covering of the nutmeg seed) or some other spice, is not only permissible but commendable ”

“ The pumpkin variety reaches almost the same lofty heights as the cherry. When not over-dosed with spices, a pumpkin-pie conveys a sense of the October landscape that is the despair of the best painters. In the gooseberry I find a certain raciness, or if I may use the expression, zip, that is highly stimulating. Both qualities you will observe in Hezekiah if you come to know her well. The thought of blackberry or raspberry-pie depresses me, but huckleberry buoys the spirit again. ”

“ Serve hot and well seasoned.
Pumpkin pie. Make a custard with five eggs, two ounces of sugar, one pint of pumpkin pulp, one pony of molasses, three ounces of melted butter, one pinch of grated nutmeg, one pinch of cinnamon and one pinch of allspice. Mix to a custard, and finish like a custard pie.
Pumpkin pulp. Peel a pumpkin and wash out the seeds. Steam or boil until soft, and strain through a fine sieve.
Baked whitefish, St. Menehould. Take four pounds of whitefish (bass or other fish may be used) , put in a vessel with two quarts of water and a spoonful of salt, and boil for five minutes. ”

“ Bake in moderate oven and meringue with the white of egg beaten not very stiff with 1–11⁄2 tablespn. sugar and the lemon extract. (A thick meringue seems out of place on a squash pie.) If preferred, 1 or 2 of the whites may be beaten stiff, flavored and stirred into the pie before it is baked. 1⁄2–3⁄4 cup soup cracker crumbs may be used instead of eggs.
Pumpkin Pies
Suggestions—Select a dark, rich-colored pumpkin with deep indentations and thick meat. Some of the small sugar pumpkins are very nice.
Good pies cannot be made out of coarse-grained, watery pumpkins. ”

“ Line pie-plates with a rich crust, fill with mince meat mixture, put a rich paste crust on top, or strips if preferred, prick slightly and bake. Serve warm, not hot.
PUMPKIN PIE Press through a sieve one pint of stewed pumpkin, add four eggs and a scant cup of sugar. Beat yolks and sugar together until very thick and add one pint of milk to the beaten eggs. Then add the pressed pumpkin, one-half teaspoon of cinnamon, less than one-half teaspoon of mace and grated nutmeg. Stir the stiffly-beaten whites in last. Bake in a very rich crust without cover. ”

“ Even in the best hotels and restaurants of London there is no sign of pie on the bill of fare, and the French cooks, who can make old hash taste like choice bits of fresh meat or better, have not learned the science of constructing pie, mince, apple, pumpkin, cherry or any kind of pie. I do not know how they do it, but the railroad restaurants are run without pie. Even the crowned heads go through life without knowing the taste of pumpkin pie, and one of my ideas of royalty in my early days was that a king or prince could have custard pie with flaky brown crust three times a day. ”

“ PUMPKIN PIE.—One quart milk, three cups stewed pumpkin, one tablespoon flour, four eggs, one and one half cups brown sugar, one half cup molasses, one teaspoon salt, one level tablespoon cinnamon, one teaspoon ginger, one tablespoon melted butter. Bake with an under crust. Makes three pies. Beat eggs, add pumpkin, then flour, sugar, salt, spices, molasses and butter and lastly the milk which may be partly cream. ”

“ Mix 2 cups steamed and strained pumpkin, with 2 teaspoons Crisco, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon each cinnamon, cloves, mace, allspice, and ginger, grated rind of 1 lemon, 1 cup milk, 1/2 cup cream, 2 well beaten eggs, and pour into prepared pie plate. Bake till firm in moderate oven. Serve hot. As a change, place on the pumpkin pie as it comes out of the oven a layer of halved marshmallows, replace in the oven and let them brown. ”

“ PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH
“A plump wife and a big barn
never did any man harm”
Pies
PUMPKIN PIE 11⁄2 cups mashed cooked pumpkin 11⁄2 cups rich milk 3⁄4 cup brown sugar 2 eggs pastry for 9" shell 1 tsp. cinnamon 1⁄2 tsp. ginger 1⁄4 tsp. cloves, powdered 3⁄4 tsp. salt 2 tblsp. butter, melted
Place all ingredients in a bowl and beat well with a rotary egg beater. Chill and pour into an unbaked pie shell. Bake in hot oven (450-f) for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to moderately slow oven (325-f) . When surface of pie filling turns light brown, test by inserting a silver knife. ”

“ But Jack Pumpkinhead grew a lot of things in his garden besides pumpkins, so he cooked for them a fine vegetable soup and gave Dorothy, Ojo and Toto, the only ones who found it necessary to eat, a pumpkin pie and some green cheese. ”

“ Beat the eggs and add to them the sugar, salt, and spices. Stir this into the mixture. Fill partly baked pie crust and bake in a moderate oven until the mixture is set and the crust is baked. Serve plain or spread a layer of whipped cream over the pie when it has cooled.
67. SQUASH PIE.--Pie that is similar to pumpkin pie may be made by using winter squash instead of pumpkin. It is somewhat finer in texture than pumpkin, and most persons consider it to be superior in flavor. When squash is desired for pies, it should be prepared in the same way as pumpkin.
SQUASH PIE ”

“ In this day of canned and dried fruits the season need not be so strictly observed, but fresh fruits will always be preferable to preserved ones, and tradition goes far to hold the place for pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, and mince pie at the Christmas feasts. ”

“ A very little pepper. If you use corn meat, or tongue, for pies, it should be well soaked, and boiled very tender. If you use fresh beef, salt is necessary in the seasoning. One ounce of cinnamon, one ounce of cloves. Two nutmegs add to the pleasantness of the flavor; and a bit of sweet butter put upon the top of each pie, makes them rich; but these are not necessary. Baked three quarters of an hour. If your apples are rather sweet, grate in a whole lemon.
PUMPKIN AND SQUASH PIE.
For common family pumpkin pies, three eggs do very well to a quart of milk. ”

“ If oranges are very sour use more sugar.
Apple pie (for 20 men) .
Take 21⁄2 pounds stewed apples, season with cinnamon, juice of 1⁄2 lemon, and skin chopped fine. Crust: 4 pounds flour and 2 pounds lard.
Pumpkin pie (for 20 men) .
Take 2 pumpkins and peel and cut in about 2 or 3-inch squares, cover with water and let boil about 1 hour. Drain off water and mash thoroly and add 1⁄2 pound butter or bacon grease, 1⁄4 pound sugar. Season with nutmeg and cinnamon, and 1 ounce salt and 1 quart milk and 4 eggs beaten together. Set on stove and let come to a boil, then it is ready. Remove and let cool. ”

“ Maize-meal puddings and pumpkin pies and tarts were common with us, but the sweet we loved best was a peach-pie, made like an apple-pie with a crust, and these came in about the middle of February and lasted until April or even May, when our late variety, which we called "winter peach," ripened.
My mother was a clever and thrifty housekeeper, and I think she made more of the peach than any other resident in the country who possessed an orchard. Her peach preserves, which lasted us the year round, were celebrated in our neighbourhood. ”

“ Such being man's nature, apropos of pies and puddings, it follows, of course, that the pumpkin-pies eaten by the first tribe of little Yankee boys were never equalled by those made of peaches and plums in later years, and the pumpkin-pie was accordingly promoted from that period to the first place in pastry, among all good Yankees. ”

“ Our chair a broad pumpkin, -- our lantern the moon,
Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team!
Then thanks for thy present! none sweeter or better
E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!
Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,
Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than thine! ”

“ There were two cooks, Phillips and Boswell, the former of whom had shared the trials and tribulations of the terrible march down from the head of Heart River, and seemed resolved to make hay while the sun shone; he could make anything but pie—in that he failed miserably. I think it was Oliver Wendell Holmes who once wrote an essay to demonstrate that the isothermal line of perpetual pumpkin pie was the line of highest civilization and culture. The converse of the proposition would seem to be equally true: pie, of any kind, cannot be made except under the most æsthetic surroundings ”

“ Mix them with the cornstarch and add them to the prune mixture, with the yolks of eggs and the whites stiffly beaten. Pour into a buttered earthenware dish, dredge with sugar, and bake for half an hour in a fairly hot oven. Serve hot.
PUMPKIN PIE 1⁄2 pint (1 cup) stewed pumpkin 4 heaping tablespoonfuls (4 ozs.) sugar 1⁄2 teaspoonful powdered ginger 1⁄2 teaspoonful powdered cinnamon 1⁄4 teaspoonful grated nutmeg 1 teaspoonful lemon extract 2 eggs 1 tablespoonful cornstarch 1⁄2 pint (1 cup) cream 2 tablespoonfuls melted butter Line an earthenware pie-plate with pastry. ”

“ The pie was so nice that they kept eating at it all along, and the mother told them about the good little pumpkin that it was made of, and how the good little pumpkin had never had any wish from the time it was nothing but a seed, except to grow up and be made into pies and eaten at Thanksgiving; and they must all try to be good, too, and grow up and do likewise. ”

“ To every quart of the pumpkin add the ingredients given above, the eggs previously beaten till thick and light, and the butter and sugar stirred to a cream. When well mixed, bake in a pie-dish lined and covered with paste. ”

“ TURNIPS.
Turnips are boiled plain with or without meat, also mashed like potatoes and stewed like parsnips. They should always be served hot. They require from forty minutes to an hour to cook.
STEWED PUMPKINS.
See stewed pumpkin for pie. Cook the same, then after stewing season the same as mashed potatoes. Pumpkin is good baked in the same manner as baked winter squash.
STEWED ENDIVE.
Ingredients.—Six heads of endive, salt and water, one pint of broth, thickening of butter and flour, one tablespoonful of lemon juice, a small lump of sugar. ”

“ Modern English recipes for stewed pumpkin resemble this Apician precept, but America has made a really palatable dish from pumpkin by the addition of eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger—spices which the insipid pumpkin needs. The ancient original may have omitted the eggs because Apicius probably expected his formula to be carried out in accordance with the preceding formulæ. Perhaps this is proven by the fact that Tor. continues the Rose Pie recipe with et cucurbita patina sic fiet. ”

“ Melons and pumpkins will absolutely overrun you, if you do not give them most bounteous scope, and you need want neither water nor musk-melons for six or eight months yearly on an average, if you duly time the sowings. Nothing can exceed their rich juiciness and flavour, and the rapidity of their growth is almost miraculous, when a few showers of rain temper the hot days. The pumpkin makes an excellent substitute for the apple in a pie, when soured and sweetened to a proper temper by lemons and sugar. ”