“I’ll have a Pumpkin chai tea with one of those pumpkin muffins, please,” says everyone this time of year. “Go ahead and throw in a few of those pumpkin spiced marshmallows while were at it.”
Pumpkin has become the latest over marketed abundance for the United States. You can get pumpkin enhanced ice cream, milk shakes, short bread, brownies, rice cakes, even pumpkin soup. It’s a craze to be sure, and no one can know for sure where it will end, but it is quite clear where it all began, with a simple and beloved slice of delicious Pumpkin Pie.
Sure there are people in the world who don’t like Pumpkin Pie. Most of them are borderline psychotic, however, and likely one wrong decision away from transforming into full-fledged serial killers. The rest of us in the normal spectrum will never turn down a slice of Pumpkin Pie, especially in the Winter months, when offered. The scale of deliciousness associated with Pumpkin Pie begins with “Mmmm, pretty good” on the lowest end, and ends with “Holy… What?? I can’t believe… (then enters a bliss coma).” That latter reaction is usually associated with a Pumpkin Cheese cake. Slices of one of those cause a person to do that thing where your about to be sick from how full you just got, but it tastes to incredible to not finish, so you just start taking faster, and huger bites to get it all in the stomach before it sensibly begins rejecting any more content.
Today’s Pumpkin Pie was just store-bought, and even though I do have Pumpkin Ice Cream in the freezer, it seemed that on this day, we should all just enjoy the simplicity of the slice… with some whipped cream, of course. That’s just a given. In heinsite, I should have served it with the Pumpkin Ice Cream. That was a stupid rationalization. It made no sense at all.
You can make a Pumpkin Pie from scratch, scooping out the meat of a pumpkin and mooshing it all up, but since you’re adding so much sugar and other spices into it anyway, I can’t imagine anyone would notice the difference. If you want to try, however, don’t get clever by scooping out the meat of some discounted post two dollar Halloween pumpkin. That big boy’s just for show, and his meat is no longer fit for cooking. Best to get a Sugar Pumpkin from the grocery store. One pumpkin has the same amount of meat as the can you’d use.
I don’t know that I’ve ever had a “from scratch” Pumpkin Pie. I really don’t think anyone has since 1890. Cans are where it’s at. We’re all about the cans.
See you Wednesday on National Candy Cane Day.
2012 Will Be Delicious! 