Pumpkins

Back in October I brewed with my brother a spiced pumpkin ale, a recipe from Northern Brewer. For those of you who are unfamiliar, pumpkin ales are a popular seasonal beer made by many craft breweries across the country, with the original modern pumpkin ale being brewed by Buffalo Bills Brewery (which sadly earns only a C rating on BeerAdvocate). Most pumpkin ales are spiced with pumpkin pie spices and may or may not be made with pumpkin in the mash or boil. Our particular recipe had roasted, cubed pumpkin from our dear, sweet mother’s garden. But this post isn’t meant to be a lesson on beer, so let me continue, will ya?

            A couple weeks after making our beer, I decided to research pumpkin beers a little. This is a common behavior of mine to research something after I already should have. It turns out that pumpkin ales and pumpkins in general have been of significant importance since colonial times. It makes sense after all, when I think of pumpkins, the first two things that come to mind are Halloween and pilgrims. My internet research started with and focused mostly on the beer part of pumpkins.

            Pumpkin beers started as more of a wine than a beer, meaning they were not made with any addition of grains, but were made solely of pressed and fermented pumpkin juice, something which I really want to try making. These pumpkin beers were made out of necessity though, not out of some creative endeavor. The British had control over the import of barley malt and it was hard to get a hold of it in the Colonies before agriculture was established here. So colonists, including slave wooer Thomas Jefferson, used whatever fermentables they could get a hold of. And the only other alternative, not having beer, was not really an alternative back then. (History has always been on the side of beer)

            Unfortunately, recipes and information on how to make these old pumpkin beers/wines is hard to find. So after beer forums failed me, I asked the Library of Congress. Apparently you can simply e-mail them a question and an actual librarian will answer you, no automated e-mails. So a kind woman named Alison responded to my inquiry with some resources for me to look at. Most of them required me to actually go to a library and check out books, but one was a link to a page about pumpkins in colonial times, which I read as I drank a bottle of my pumpkin ale and ate a bowl of pumpkin soup. What I already knew was that pumpkins, and the squash family of which it is a member, are native to the Americas. But I never realized how much they meant to the early settlers who went on to exploit, rape, and ravage the continent and its native people. Pumpkins were not used as decorations or to replace a horseman’s head, but they were a staple food. They were undoubtedly shared at the first Thanksgiving and due to their long storage life, they got a lot of colonials through the harsh pre-global warming/Al Gore winters.

            While I consider myself no impassioned patriot, I do enjoy finding meaning in my heritage, whether it be ethnic, geographical, national, or anything else. When you identify yourself with a particular culture or other grouping, you really start to see how unique you are in terms of where you came from. Pumpkins are 100 percent American. They first grew here and they were what our historical idols ate, much more than you would think. Unfortunately the only real remnant we have of our country’s pompion-eating days is pumpkin pie. The big jack-o-lantern pumpkins that are most common nowadays were bred and popularized in the 70s.

            I am by no means saying you should stop carving pumpkins or feel bad that you don’t like pumpkin pie (Although I guess I kinda am). But this Thanksgiving I ask that you take a look at the pumpkin sitting proudly in the middle of your parents’ dinner table centerpiece and think about how such an overlooked thing has so much more significance than we typically give it. And think about why you may just assume a pumpkin has the role it has. Then look over at everything else on your table and think about its significance. I ask you to do this not because I think you will have some great epiphany, but because when you look at what little things mean to other people or other times, you will find there is a lot more to the seemingly boring world around you, and you will feel a little better. Maybe. I guess what I’m saying is that this Thanksgiving, instead of going through the motions, you should give a little thanks of your own.

Inspirational source of post: http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/autumn09/pumpkins.cfm