Series: Pie Rules based on a November 14, 1928 New York Amsterdam News article.
Sweet Swap
If crusts tested rules, filling bent them. Lillian Sharpe Hunter allowed canned pumpkin and said squash works the same way, opening a door to the sweet potato. Artist David Driskell remembered that 1930s dominant caste neighbors in Rutherford County, North Carolina, seldom baked sweet potato pie; they hired his mother. Skill became income inside a system built to deny it. Pumpkin tastes lighter and milder, so spices lead. Sweet potato tastes denser, creamier, and sweeter, with caramel notes, so it needs less sugar. Bake, don’t boil, the potatoes.
[Side Bar]
Lillian Sharpe Hunter, “Housewives Exchange: Holiday Plea,” New York Amsterdam News, November 14, 192. Brackets adapt the recipe for sweet potato pie.
Pumpkin Pie Recipe
Ingredients
2 cups mashed pumpkin [or baked, mashed sweet potato]
3 eggs, separated
1 cup brown sugar [about ¾ cup for sweet potato]
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon ginger
⅛ teaspoon each ground cloves and allspice
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
3 cups scalded milk
Pastry for one pie
Directions
Peel a pumpkin of fine grain and remove the seeds. Cut into pieces and steam until tender. Drain and mash through a sieve, or use canned pumpkin.To the pumpkin add the egg yolks, brown sugar, salt, and spices. Mix well, then add the scalded milk. Last of all, fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Line the pie plate with pastry, coat it with egg white, and pour in the filling. Squash may be used the same way.
Lillian Sharpe Hunter, “Housewives Exchange: Holiday Plea,” New York Amsterdam News, November 14, 1928, 5.
Whose skill does your holiday table depend on?