Freeform Friday 18 - Pumpkin Pie

I don’t like pumpkin pie.

And maybe you don’t like pumpkin pie as much as you think you do.

I grew up eating my grandmother’s pumpkin pie every Thanksgiving. She would bake the pies, bring them from San Diego, and while my stomach was still bursting at the seams from turkey and stuffing, I would add a piece of pumpkin pie on top. For as long as I can remember we ate pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving; it was a tradition, as much a part of the fourth Thursday of November as turkey or stuffing. My only problem was that I didn’t care for the tradition of pumpkin pie; I didn’t really like it at all.

So two years ago as I was celebrating Thanksgiving with my sister in Texas, I told her that I wouldn’t be eating pumpkin pie and would appreciate if she made a pecan pie. Two years ago I took a stand and decided that I would no longer allow my Thanksgiving dessert choice to be dictated to me by convention and habit. I made the choice to break free from the bonds imposed on me by tradition and eat something other than pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving.

It has been wonderful.

Pumpkin pie is kind of gross. It’s cold. It’s mushy. It doesn’t have much flavor. I doubt that anyone would like pumpkin pie nearly as much as they do if it wasn’t so directly connected to the Thanksgiving holiday. Who in their right mind would choose a slice of cold, wet, bland pumpkin pie over a nice warm piece of pecan or apple pie à la mode?

I don’t doubt that you like pumpkin pie. But maybe you don’t like it as much as you think you do. Take away the warm, nostalgic feelings associated with pumpkin pie and what’s left? Something that came out of a can, gets dumped in a pie crust and is only made edible because of a mountain of whipped cream.

You may feel like I’m attacking your childhood but that’s only because pumpkin pie has such a strong emotional connection to the family celebrations of our past. Pumpkin pie isn’t awful but it’s made a lot better by all the memories attached to it. There are a lot of pies out there that are good enough to stand on their own without the support of nostalgia. I’m asking that you give one of them a shot next year.

How do you feel about pumpkin pie?