Thanksgiving Reveals America’s Divided Dessert Identity: Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Pie | Luck

Two Thanksgiving favorites have more in common than not. They have a similar color, taste and texture and are derived from the European carrot cake. These similarities make it easier to compare.

“Pumpkin,” said Lori Robinson, a customer at Sugar Magnolia Takeery in Flowood, Mississippi. “My mom cooks it every Thanksgiving, Christmas, every time. It’s so much better than sweet potatoes.”

Unlike some bakeries in the area, Sugar Magonlia Takers makes both pumpkin and sweet potato pies.

Owner Elizabeth Arnold said the main difference between her bakery’s pies is the spices. Sweet potatoes are sweeter, made from white and brown sugar. Pumpkin pie is less sweet and food-like.

“Sweet potato pie. All day,” said Xavier Pittman, another customer.

At Arnold’s Bakery, sweet potatoes tend to outsell pumpkin.

That’s not surprising in a Southern bakery, explained Adrian Miller, a food writer known as the “Student of Soul Food.”

He said sweet potato pie is especially popular in the South, where sweet potatoes have deep roots in the region’s culture, economy and painful past.

“If there was to be a Mount Rushmore of desserts for the soul, sweet potato pie would definitely be there,” Miller said.

Pumpkin pie, while ubiquitous, is more often associated with the northern part of the country.

The stereotypes boiled down to this: Pumpkin pie is popular with white northerners, while sweet potato pie is popular with black southerners. But for culinary historian and author Michael W. Twitty, the issue is more subtle.

With both desserts rooted in American history, tradition and culture, the debate over which is better, Twitty argues, is really about identity.

“We can have fun with good-natured ribbing between regions and cultures,” Twitty said. “At the same time, don’t make it too serious to the point where it’s like a hard and fast designation of who you are, who I am, who we are.”

Twitty grew up in Washington, DC, not in the Deep South. But, according to him, the South grew up in him. His family’s southern roots date back to the 17th century.

“Everybody would always bring like two homemade sweet potato pies,” Twitty said of his childhood Thanksgivings.

The intermingling of sweet potatoes and southern black culture began with slavery. Sweet potatoes were a staple for many enslaved people in the Americas, Twitty said. It was an accessible, familiar food, similar to the yams and cassava that form the cornerstone of African cuisine.

Enslaved people are credited with perfecting the sweet potato pie recipe, although Europeans are believed to be the first to attempt such a delicacy.

Some believe slavery is the reason sweet potato pie didn’t catch on in the North. The abolitionist movement advocated boycotting goods made by enslaved people, but Twitty said the answer is probably simpler: access.

Sweet potatoes and pumpkins were available in the South. In the North, however, early Americans didn’t have much access to the orange sweet potatoes we think of today, Miller said. Instead, northern sweet potatoes had white flesh and a flourier texture.

With limited access to sweet potatoes in the North, the pumpkin probably ruled. The tradition of pumpkin pie dates back centuries to the colonial period, Miller said. A pumpkin pie recipe was included in the nation’s first cookbook, written in 1796 by Amelia Simmons.

While there may be some truth to the culinary divide, Twitty said the stereotypes don’t hold up in many communities. Miller, who also has Southern ancestry, said he grew up eating pumpkin and sweet potato pie for Thanksgiving.

“Also, there’s somebody, every day, every year, who breaks the rules,” Twitty said.