SC - Canned Pumpkin

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Stefan li Rous wrote:
> 
> Allison said:
> > Living in different parts of the world, I find that nobody but USA'ers
> > seem to like pumpkin so much!  Some countries contemptuously refer to
> > pumpkins as animal fodder and are disgusted that people would eat this!
> > Canned pumpkin may well be hard or impossible to find.

Most cultures enjoy a little xenophobic food nastiness, generally
involving the claim that some favorite staple among a certain group is
food for pigs where you come from. The other evening my mother-in-law,
the Iron Lotus Blossom, watched everyone but herself take at least one
bite of the lovely little growth shoots/tips of the snow-pea vine, and
announced that she used to feed those to the pigs when she was a girl.
(No, I did not reply that I had learned many interesting things over the
years from pig-farmers; she would probably have missed my polite
sincerity and literal truthfulness, and been mortally insulted.) My two
favorite idiocies are still "Vegetables are what food eats <guffaw>" and
"I don't eat [insert food pejorative here-- a common one would be
referring to small fish or shellfish, possibly sushi, as 'bait' ". Both
spoken just slightly above normal conversational tones. Generally, all
such statements translate as "I'm much too cool to debase myself by
eating this thing I've decided is unworthy of me. Lesser beings are
welcome to it."    
 
> C. Anne Wilson in her "Food and Drink in Britain - From the Stone Age
> to the 19th Century" seems to allude to this idea of the USA liking
> pumpkin pie more than the rest of the world.
> 
> p349
> 
> "The pumpkin pies enjoyed by people of substance were in the tradition
> of the earlier rich pies of mixed ingredients. The pumpkin was first
> sliced and fried with sweet herbs and spices, sugar and beatten eggs.
> Then it was put into a pastry shell with alternate layers of apples and
> currants. Pumpkin pie made on similar lines has become a national
> dish in America, having been introduced there by early colonists. In
> England, however, it went out of fashion in the course of the eighteenth
> century."

Of course, the standard pumpkin pie of America has long since evolved
away from the description above, if it ever applied at all. For all you
dang furriners who don't eat bait _or_ pumpkin pie, because pumpkin pie
is what food eats, I'll simply state that most pumpkin pies seem to be
open tarts filled with mashed, cooked pumpkin, sweetened and spiced, and
bound with eggs and milk or cream. Essentially a sweet, spicy baked
pumpkin custard.
 
> When was Australia settled? Since pumpkin pie is apparently known
> there, I'm wondering it was introduced there by settlers from Britain
> before it lost favor in England, and then the interest in it continued
> independantly there.

Late eighteenth & early nineteenth centuries? It may have been
introduced by settlers before it lost favor in England, or it may have
evolved in parallel (you know, like the offworld aliens in comic books
that look exactly like humans?), or it may even have been introduced by
Americans. I would guess Australia is about on a par with the USA as a
cultural melting-pot and a gracious host for immigrants, some of whom
have been Americans. Including Mel Gibson, BTW ;  ) .

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com