This Early American Cookbook Features A Tasty Pumpkin Pie Predecessor

Decorative Gourd Season is almost upon us, and with it comes an onslaught of pumpkin: not only those which get carved and placed on a doorstep, but pumpkin spice, pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, and, of course, pumpkin pies. That last one is a reliable staple for Thanksgiving dessert, but sometimes getting a big can of pumpkin filling and dumping it into a pie crust just isn't fulfilling enough. What if you want to get a little more ambitious? Well, you can make excellent use of a recipe for "pompkin pudding", an early form of pumpkin pie, in a cookbook from the 18th century.

The recipe from "American Cookery," by Amelia Simmons, calls for the usual assortment of pumpkin pie ingredients: pumpkin, water, sugar, cream, assorted spices, you know the drill. Still, some things might trip up an unsuspecting baker trying an old recipe. For one thing, Simmons calls for you to make your own pie crust, or a "paste for sweet meats" as she calls it; for another thing, some of the measurements she uses will probably be unfamiliar to modern readers. (What is a "peck of flour"? Well, you'll just have to find out, won't you?) With that said, though, if you follow the recipe as stated, you will end up with a perfectly solid pumpkin pie.

So who was this Amelia Simmons? We don't know very much about her: We know that she was an orphan, probably from the Albany region of New York, and that she earned a modest living as a domestic servant. Other than that, we're in the dark — we don't even know when she was born or died. Even so, she had a major impact on American cooking, and her influence can be felt to this day.

This is not to say, of course, that all of the recipes contained in "American Cookery" have aged well. None of us will be eating lamb's head soup or tongue pie anytime soon, to name just a couple of the more eyebrow-raising (if not gag-inducing) recipes in this book. But it's notable as the first truly American cookbook, featuring recipes that used American ingredients, even if the cooking techniques were developed in Europe. Americans in the 18th century still primarily used cookbooks from England, so having a book that offered recipes for turkey, pumpkin, and cranberries (and not the kind you get in a can), as well as some that made use of cornmeal, was genuinely groundbreaking. And hey, some of Simmons' recipes aged pretty well after all: not only did she publish one of the first pumpkin pie recipes, she can also be credibly considered one of the inventors of the cupcake.