Ode to Pumpkin Pie

I’m up early on Thanksgiving morning, like the woman in the nursery rhyme, — Dame get up and bake your pies! It’s time to prepare filling for the pumpkin pie, which has always been my favorite pie. Throughout my childhood, Mom made pumpkin pie for the holidays. She had perfected her recipe so that the custard filling was permeated with pumpkin taste but didn’t taste like a vegetable plus it had a melt-in-the mouth texture that was delicate and soft, never rubbery. Oftentimes times I would help her make it. She would get out the Sunbeam stand mixer and we’d start mixing eggs, milk, sugar, salt and spices in the bowl.

Mother’s pie etched a memory on my tongue and in my heart. Making pumpkin pie was how I learned to crack an egg, measure cinnamon on a measuring spoon, grate fresh nutmeg and realize that although vanilla smells wonderful — by itself, it tastes awful. Once assembled, the pumpkin custard tasted raw but the aroma was promising. I’d watch the pie bake through the window on the oven door, listening to the click-click-click of the timer count down to the time when we’d check doneness by sticking a clean knife into the center of the pie. The pie was done when the the knife came out clean.

During the fall of my freshman year of college, I remember seeing all the pumpkins piled high at the local markets and featured prominently as decorations on porches of the beautiful old homes…