Old-Fashioned Pumpkin Pie [GF]

The climate in which we dwell, and in particular that in which we spend our infancy and youth, yields the bulk of the timber from which the metaphorical architecture of our weltanschauung is constructed.  For those dubious of this assertion's veracity, I heartily recommend residing in some far-flung location whose climate is as close to diametrically opposite that of one's provenance as possible, and then returning to one's native land during a particularly captivating season, such as Autumn in the Upper Midwest.  Indeed, the word "autumn" is all but superfluous on the Hawaiian Islands, where the standard deviation in temperature appears to be in the single digits Fahrenheit and the difference between summer and winter has more to do with precipitation than temperature.  In the greater Minneapolis area, however, autumn is nothing less than the symbolic requital of spring's myriad promises: it is a harvest celebration in which nature herself supplies the banners the confetti, and the music (from the throats of Canada geese volant to the crepitation of workboots upon leaf-strewn pathways), coupled with an annual acknowledgment (that you can bet pervades the Minneapolitan psyche) that human lives themselves have their seasons and cycles, that those seasons have a dramatic arc to them, and that none of them lacks its industry and purpose.   

These sentiments (bear with me here: the anthropology's nearly done and the recipe's coming...) are embodied in the region's traditional harvest foods: baked squashes, ears of gold-tasseled corn, roasted fowls packed with myriad forcemeats replete with nuts and dessicated cherries, and raw, tart apples to be broken vociferously between the teeth.  These are foods which heat the kitchen, foods far too cumbersome to prepare when only one lone diner is to sit at table and which therefore urge companionship and communion, foods rich in starches and sugars to sustain the eater through the coming dearth.  As trite as these symbols have become to most of us as a result of our collective elementary-school experience with Thanksgiving decorations and woefully historically inaccurate fables about pilgrims and helpful natives breaking bread, their symbolic power tends to get reinvigorated quickly after one is thrust into a Minnesotan autumn after many moons roaming abroad in lands without similar seasonality or seasonings.  In that spirit, one of my first culinary endeavors after arriving in Minnesota this fall was to produce from scratch perhaps the most hackneyed of the season's symbolic foodstuffs: pumpkin pie.

Making a pumpkin pie from scratch is not particularly difficult, but a few tidbits of wisdom (gleaned from cookbooks of various sorts over the years) should be passed on to the reader who has never attempted to do so before.  As far a pumpkins go, seek out pie pumpkins rather than carving pumpkins — provided you can find them.  If you're physically located in Hawaii, or some other location in which pie pumpkins aren't east to come by, I've read (though have not personally verified) that kombucha do quite well in their stead.  The only thing keeping this recipe from being vegan is the eggs, for which many apt substitutes also exist.  The recipe I've provided below makes two smallish pies.  Pie pumpkins, unfortunately, are quantized in units which tend to yield far more pumpkin flesh than require for even a pair of pies, so feel free to do what you will with what remains.  As a final comment, if you're not particularly keen on steaming as a method for cooking your pumpkin (do to time constraints or any other reason), several alternative methods (including one involving a microwave oven) can be found here.

Pie filling:

• 1 small pie pumpkin
• 2 cups vanilla soy milk
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp. Torani hazelnut syrup
• ½ cup white sugar
• ½ tsp. cinnamon
• ¼ tsp. nutmeg
• ¼ tsp. dry ginger
• ¼ tsp. nutmeg 

Slice the pumpkin in half and remove the seeds and strands of pumpkin innards.  (If you don't want to waste the seeds, I suggest cleaning and roasting them, but this is a subject for a subsequent post.)  Wash the halves off and further slice each into five or six large slices or chunks so that all can be fit together into one large pot.  Place the chunks into such a pot with a cup or more of water at the bottom and steam the slices in this manner on medium heat for 30 min. or so, or until the pumpkin flesh is soft and can be removed from the rinds with a spoon.  Separate around three cups of the pumpkin flesh from those rinds, place it in a food processor with the soy milk, and process the two together until the puree is of a uniform consistency and all chunks of pumpkin have been broken up.  Pour into a mixing bowl and combine with the other ingredients.  Stir the mixture vigorously, taking particular care to mix the eggs into it thoroughly.   

Prepare the (rice-flour based) pie crusts by following the recipe given in the my pineapple-pie post from back last December.  Once the pie crusts are satisfactorily pre-baked, remove them from the oven to cool and turn the oven temperature down to 375°.  When the pie crusts have cooled sufficiently, pour the filling into them, cover each pie with aluminum foil, and return them to the oven for 25-30 min.  Remove the foil cover from each pie and continue to bake for another 25-30 min. or until a knife stabbed through the center of each pie remains clean when withdrawn.