Tasty! Library of Congress Shares “A Brief History of Pumpkin Pie in America” & Some Thanksgiving Facts and Stats

From an Inside Adams Blog Post by LC Science Librarian and Culinary Specialist Alison Kelly:

In A Description of New Netherland, Adriaen van der Donck, an early landowner and the first lawyer in New Netherland, presented a wonderfully detailed description of the natural and cultural worlds of that Dutch colony and its environs in 1655. His observations on squashes and pumpkins, which take up much of the chapter on “Vegetables”, include the comment that “the English, who are fond of tasty food, like pumpkins very much and use them also in pies, and know how to make a beverage from them.”
The “English” referred to in van der Donck’s description were the English colonists in New England, where pumpkins were a staple of the diet. New Englanders brewed pumpkin ale, they added dried pumpkin to flips, and they stewed pumpkin as a vegetable. However, it was their pumpkin pie that, over the following centuries, went on to become an edible icon.

Read the Complete Post (approx. 2000 words + images)
Holiday-Related Data

• Average Cost of Thanksgiving Dinner 2017 (via America Farm Bureau)

• Facts and Stats About the United States on Thanksgiving 2017 (via U.S. Census)

• Selected Statistics From U.S. Census: Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday Statistics

• What are Americans Stuffing Their Shopping Carts with for Thanksgiving? (via Nielsen)

• 164 Million Consumers Plan to Shop Over Thanksgiving Weekend (via National Retail Federation) ||| More Data From NRF
• U.S. Average Gasoline Prices this Thanksgiving are Higher than the Previous Two Years (via EIA)

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