Pumpkin: The Curious History of an American Icon
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    • Pumpkin: The Curious History of an American Icon
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    • Cindy Ott
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    • Acknowledgments
  • Online Exhibition
    • Just Another Squash: 12,000 BCE to 1600
    • From Pumpkin Beer to Pumpkin Pie: 1600 to 1799
    • The Making of a Rural New England Icon: 1800 to 1860
    • The Pumpkin and the Nation: 1861 to 1899
    • Americans Celebrate the Fall Harvest with Pumpkins: 1900 to 1945
    • The Changing Nature of Pumpkins: 1946 to the Present
    • The Changing Nature of American Rural Economies: 1946 to the Present
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Simmons, Amelia. American Cookery (1796). New York: Eerdmans, 1965.

The First Pumpkin Pie    

As the first cookbook published in the United States, Amelia Simmons’ 1796 American Cookery was self-consciously an indigenous and patriotic text, although with a New England bias. Unlike all culinary observers before her, Simmons cataloged winter squash as a vegetable dish and pumpkin as a dessert—something special to celebrate as a pleasant reward. Simmons made pumpkin pie instead of squash pie  because pumpkin meant more.  But pumpkin pie was yet to become the special finale of the Thanksgiving meal, however.  See recipes below.

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