When you think about the components of the traditional Thanksgiving feast, not surprisingly they seem to all be native to North America -- turkey, cranberries, green beens, pumpkin pie, etc. Back when the first Thanksgiving feasts were celebrated people ate locally from the harvest -- the classic American meal.
These days the foods are the same but the delivery is different. Turkeys are frozen and packaged in plastic. Cranberries come out of a can. Green beens are covered in canned soup and canned fried onions and then baked. Pumpkin pie is made from canned pumpkin and even canned milk. This is the new classic American meal, delivered via cans at the supermarket. It's how so many Americans know how to cook and eat today. And I am not a purist on this. I follow the shortcuts or not, depending on my circumstances (time), and how important it is to me to have something fresh and delicious. I'm more of a pragmatist.
Now, I am not in charge of the Thanksgiving dinner for my family. We went to my mother's house. But I decided to make a pumpkin pie for the event. And in spite of the fact that I have no leisure time whatsoever, I got it in my head that I wanted to make the pumpkin pie from scratch. This was not met with a great deal of support from anyone. People kept trying to talk me out of it. The most recent example of this came Wednesday morning when my mother phoned me to tell me of an article she read that said canned pumpkin was superior to fresh pumpkin when making pumpkin pie. That's because the pumpkin in the can was processed at the peak of flavor.
But I was on a mission. Still, I didn't want to disappoint anyone either. So I hedged my bets. I made two pies -- one from scratch and another with canned pumpkin. I followed the same recipe for both.
Here it is:
2 cups pumpkin puree or canned pumpkin
1.5 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup tightly packed brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs plus one egg yolk
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Mix all the ingredients until well combined. Pour into pie shell or crust. (I made a pie shell with two cups of graham cracker crumbs, 2 Tablespoons of ground pecans, a couple tablespoons of butter and about a tablespoon of unsweetened applesauce, combined and pressed into a 9 inch aluminum foil pie tin. Bake in a preheated oven (350 degrees) for 20 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick/knife/whatever comes out clean if you carefully put it into the pie.
To get the pumpkin puree I bought a "sugar pumpkin." That's a small pumpkin. One that a 2 year old can carry. About 8 inches in diameter. I read on the internet (and if it's on the internet it must be true) that these are the pumpkins to use for pies -- not the big ones that you use for jack-o-lanterns. The small ones have the higher sugar content.
To make the puree I cut the pumpkin in half CAREFULLY. While doing this I realized that this would be an easy way to slice off a finger, it's simultaneously hard to do and slippery. So you have resistance, resistance and all the sudden quick movement. Be careful. Once in halves, scoop the goop out of it. Save the seeds to roast and enjoy separately. When you have a cleaned pumpkin, cut into a couple more pieces. I ended up with four or five. Put it in a microwave safe dish and cook for 15 minutes. Test it to see if it is fork tender. If not, put it back in and go for another 5 minutes. When it's all finished, scoop the pumpkin out of the shell, just as you would scoop potato if you were making twice baked potatoes.
Puree the pumpkin in a blender. I used a hand blender as I haven't been able to find our upright blender since we moved. My pumpkin puree was a bright orange color. The color of, well, pumpkin.
By contrast the canned pumpkin was a much darker orange color. It was also a little drier than the fresh pumpkin puree. But it seemed more consistent in its texture.
I tasted the fresh pumpkin puree. It didn't have much of a flavor. I couldn't bring myself to taste the canned.
Here's a picture of the canned pumpkin (left) versus the fresh pumpkin (right)
(For those who have been paying attention, yes, that is our new kitchen floor. Someday I will post pictures of the new kitchen, which was finished the day before my c-section. It was months before I got to cook in it. Sorry for the lengthy delay on post-remodel pictures. David has some really cool pictures on his computer somewhere, but he won't turn them over to me...)
And here's a picture of the custard fillings -- canned pumpkin on the left and fresh on the right. You can see that the canned pumpkin yielded a more colorful custard than the fresh pumpkin custard, which ended up more beige. I tasted both the custards. The fresh was tasty and after tasting the fresh one, the custard from the canned pumpkin was cloyingly sweet.
And here, finally, are the finished pies. The fresh pumpkin is on the left and the canned is on the right.
It is hard to see in these pictures, but if you look carefully you will see that the surface of the pie from fresh pumpkin had a rougher surface of tiny little craters, much like the pictures I've seen of the surface of the moon, or my own face as an adolescent. The pie from canned pumpkin had a much smoother surface and was a little deeper color. It LOOKED better.
I took both pies to the Thanksgiving celebration. There were about 16 people there. However, I was the only one who tried both pies. My verdict? The pie from the fresh pumpkin was more flavorful. I liked it better. Everyone else there who ate pumpkin pie ate the pie from fresh pumpkin, except for David who ate the pie from the canned pumpkin. (What can I say? He grew up in the family where canned food was the standard, even though they lived in a land of amazing produce.)
Now, you would think the canned would have several advantages over the fresh and go into this competition as the favorite. For example, it is likely bred to yield the perfect pumpkin pie filling. And the texture of it has been perfected by Libby's labs and duplicated in the manufacturing process. It is a pumpkin puree that has undergone the rigors of years and years of research and development and focus groups.
However, having tasted both, I am in the camp that fresh is way better.
Would I do the fresh again, even if I never get any more leisure time? Totally.
My dad makes his pumpkin pie fresh, too.
Now you have me wanting to make some! Though last week I made a very labor-intensive pear pie so I might be pied out for a while.
Posted by: Eva | November 26, 2007 at 12:10 PM
I'm glad you did that, and happy that the verdict was fresh pumpkin. I avoid cans - though some things are pantry staples: beans, tomatoes, Campbell's tomato soup.
Posted by: magpie | November 27, 2007 at 11:26 AM