PUMPKIN-PIES. 
290 
less degree, by all who partake of the viands, according to the 
state of the different appetites, and sensibilities. But this ghost 
of the school-boy pie, this spectral plum-pudding, sitting in judg- 
ment upon the present g^eneration of pies and puddings, when it 
takes possession of husband, brother, or father, has often proved 
the despair of a housekeeper. In such a case, no pains-taking 
labors, no nice mixing of ingredients, no careful injunctions to cook 
or baker, are of any use whatever ; that the pie of to-day can 
equal the pie of five-and-twenty years since, is a pure impossibili- 
ty. The pudding is tolerable, perhaps — it does pretty well — they 
are much obliged to you for the pains you have taken — yes, they 
will take a little more — another spoonful, if you please — still, if 
they must speak with perfect frankness, the rice-pudding, the 
plum tart, the apple-pie they are now eating, will no more com- 
pare with the puddings, and tarts, and pies eaten every day in 
past times at their good mother's table, than — language fails to 
express the breadth of the comparison ! Such being man's na- 
ture, apropos of pies and puddings, it follows, of course, that the 
pumpkin-pies eaten by the first tribe of little Yankee boys were 
never equalled by those made of peaches and plums in later years, 
and the pumpkin-pie was accordingly promoted from that period 
to the first place in pastry, among all good Yankees. Probably 
the first of the kind were simple enough ; eggs, cream, brandy, 
rose-water, nutmegs, ginger, and cinnamon, are all used now to 
flavor them, but some of these ingredients must have been very 
precious to the early colonists, too valuable to be thrown into 
pies. 
Probably there was also another reason why the pumpkin-pie 
was so much in favor in Kew England : it had never made part 
