I was shocked and horrified to read Nick McLaren's diatribes against
pumpkin pie. He obviously has never had good pumpkin pie. Or else he
was frightened by a rabid pumpkin as a small lad.

To set the record straight, here's *my* recipe for pumpkin pie:

Pumpkin Pie

2 eggs, beaten slightly
½ to ¾ cup sugar (3/4 cup is a little too sweet)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground allspice
½ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp salt

1 lb canned pumpkin
1 cup whole milk


Mix all ingredients. Pour into 9-inch raw pie shell. (Frozen is fine.)
Bake at 425F for 15 minutes, then lower temperature to 350–375F and
bake until a knife inserted comes out clean, about 45 minutes more.


Some remarks: this is my mother's recipe, slightly modified to use
less sugar; it originated in a 1930 cookbook, "Good Housekeeping
Recipes Tested and Approved." In that book, it's called Philadelphia
pumpkin pie and has the additional instruction to separate the eggs,
beat the whites, and fold them into the rest of the ingredients. A
near-souffle, iow.

Note that the recipe calls for canned pumpkin. No North American in
his right mind bothers with processing his own pumpkin; it's way too
much work, when you consider that high quality canned pumpkin is
available everywhere for next to nothing. It's a real bargain food.

Can you not get canned pumpkin in the UK?

These days, such delights as pie crust are verboten for health
reasons, so I mix the filling and bake it with no crust -- a sort-of
baked pumpkin custard.


Last summer, I grew an excellent squash 'Ambercup' and used the same
recipe for them. Halved them, removed pulp and seeds, and baked them
in a slow oven until soft, then ran the flesh through a food mill. The
flavor is slightly different from pumpkin, but almost the same.
Equally good, with the added pleasure of having grown your own.

Any urgler travelling to these parts is kindly invited to partake of
these delectable dishes, but please give me a little advance warning
before you show up -- a few hours is all that's required.



--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, BC, Canada
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