In Canada and the United States, most traditional Thanksgiving tables will include a pumpkin pie as dessert. Straight from the oven, the pie will give off the rich aroma of the spices in the pi. While beautiful pies are for sale in high end bakeries, nothing beats the homemade kind. However, for busy hosts, you can give your pie extra oomph by warming the pie in a 350 degree oven for five to ten minutes.

How the Pumpkin Pie Came to Be

In What’s Cooking America’s Pumpkin Pie – A History of Pumpkin Pie, Linda Stradley says, “Early American settlers of Plimoth Plantation (1620-1692), the first permanent European settlement in southern New England, might have made pumpkin pies (of sorts) by making stewed pumpkins or by filling a hollowed out shell with milk, honey and spices, and then baking it in hot ashes. An actual present-day pumpkin pie with crust is a myth, as ovens to bake pies were not available in the colony at that stage.

“Northeastern Native American tribes grew squash and pumpkins. They roasted or boiled them for eating. Historians think that the settlers were not very impressed by the Indians’ squash and/or pumpkins until they had to survive their first harsh winter when about half of the settlers died from scurvy and exposure. The Native Americans brought pumpkins as gifts to the first settlers, and taught them the many used for the pumpkin. This is what developed into pumpkin pie about 50 years after the first Thanksgiving in America…”

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