Pumpkins
If you’ve sat down at your Thanksgiving table and tucked into a deliciously sweet and creamy slice of pumpkin pie, then it will come as no surprise to you that our colonial ancestors also loved this orange gourd. It might surprise you, however, that they cooked our traditional dessert a little differently.
The first pumpkin pies weren’t really pies at all. In the first few years of the settlers’ time on the North American continent, they often hollowed out pumpkins, filled them with milk, honey, and spices, and then baked them in hot ashes. In fact, it was a French cookbook that first published a recipe for pumpkin pie with a pastry crust.