THE BATTLE OF THE BAKING PANS: How a Dessert Divided a Nation by Marisa Masterson

Pie is often served as a symbol of comfort and as a shared tradition. But during the American Civil War, the after-dinner dessert became a metaphorical battleground. Far from being simply holiday treats, pumpkin and sweet potato pies represented cultural identity, serving as symbols of the North and the South, respectively.

While the division is rooted in geography, it mushroomed into a reflection of the division in American beliefs of the mid-nineteenth century.

The story of both pies begins in Central and South America. Europeans had their first taste of sweet potatoes when Columbus landed in the Bahamas during his famous first voyage, in 1493, when the indigenous Taino people introduced him to the root vegetable. When the southern colonies were later established in the United States, the sweet potato thrived in the warm, humid climate and sandy soil, quickly becoming a staple in that part of the world.

As for the pumpkin, it followed a similar migration, but it became popular among northern colonists. Early in the colonies, there was no wheat for making pies. By the start of the nineteenth century, though, that changed, and the custard-style pumpkin pie recipe made its way to the United States to become a staple in New England.

Sarah Josepha Hale, Wikipedia

As tensions escalated before the war, one woman used these distinct regional favorites to advance a political agenda. Sarah Josepha Hale—the famed author of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and the editor of the influential Godey's Lady's Book—spent years campaigning for a national Thanksgiving holiday.

In fact, she only achieved her goal because Lincoln saw a national day of thanks a tool to unite the war-weary country. While those in the North believed Thanksgiving could accomplish that, many the South were resistant, largely due to Hale elevating the pumpkin. She declared the dessert as an "indispensable part of a good and true Yankee Thanksgiving."

By branding the pumpkin as the ultimate symbol of Yankee virtue, the pumpkin implicitly grew into a symbol for the free-labor farm versus the plantation system. That tied the humble pumpkin to the abolitionist movement.

Little wonder many in the South rejected the Thanksgiving holiday for years, just as they rejected pumpkin for their pies. It was most likely viewed as another type of invasion.

And today, is it any different? The animosity of the 1860s has faded into history, but regional preferences have an incredible ability to stay the same. As a Wisconsin girl, I can tell you I have never once tasted sweet potato pie. But I make two or three pumpkin pies each year. To my family, Thanksgiving is incomplete without that dessert.

And I am not alone. The upper Midwest remains pumpkin territory, with Illinois producing most of the nation’s canned pumpkin. While today's shipping means anyone can buy canned pumpkin—or sweet potatoes—pumpkin pie holds the seasonal monopoly in the North, and sweet potato pie remains the favorite in the South.

The legacy of the Civil War kitchen lingers on.

But how about you? Which do you prefer, and does that reflect anything about where you grew up?

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