Petite histoire de la tourte à la citrouille...

20 Novembre 2015 , Rédigé par Laurence B Publié dans #Recettes britanniques

The History of Pumpkin Pie

It’s hard to imagine an American Thanksgiving table without the ubiquitous orange-crusted custard made from strained, spiced and twice-cooked squash.
Without = sans
Ubiquitous = omniprésent
Orange-crusted = avec une croûte orange
Custard = crème anglaise
Strained = égouté, filtré
Twice-cooked = cuit à deux reprises
A squash = une courge

Few of our festival foods can claim deeper American roots than pumpkins, which were first cultivated in Central America around 5,500 B.C. and were one of the earliest foods the first European explorers brought back from the New World. The orange gourds’ first mention in Europe dates to 1536, and within a few decades they were grown regularly in England, where they were called “pumpions,” after the French “pompon,” a reference to their rounded form.
Few of = peu de
To claim = prétendre (à), revendiquer
Deep = profond
Roots = les racines
Pumpkins = les citrouilles
BC = before Christ = avant Jesus Christ
To bring back = rapporter
To grow = faire pousser

Pumpkins, as the Americans grew to call them, quickly became part of England’s highly developed pie-making culture, which had for centuries been producing complex stuffed pastries in sweet and savory varieties. When the Pilgrims sailed for America on the Mayflower in 1620, it’s likely some of them were as familiar with pumpkins as the Wampanoag, who helped them survive their first year at Plymouth Colony, were.
A pie = a stuffed pastry = une tourte garnie
Savoury = salé
To sail = naviguer

A year later, when the 50 surviving colonists were joined by a group of 90 Wampanoag for a three-day harvest celebration, it’s likely that pumpkin was on the table in some form. As useful as the orange squash were (especially as a way to make bread without much flour), they weren’t always popular. In 1654, Massachusetts ship captain Edward Johnson wrote that as New England prospered, people prepared “apples, pears, and quince tarts instead of their former Pumpkin Pies.”
To join = rejoindre
A harvest = une récolte
It’s likely = il est probable que
Useful = utile
A way to = un moyen pour
Bread = du pain
Flour = de la farine
A pear = une poire
Quince = des coings
Instead of = au lieu de, à la place de
Former = ancien

What were these “former Pumpkin Pies” like? At the time, pumpkin pie existed in many forms, only a few of which would be familiar to us today. A 1653 French cookbook instructed chefs to boil the pumpkin in milk and strain it before putting it in a crust. English writer Hannah Woolley’s 1670 “Gentlewoman’s Companion” advocated a pie filled with alternating layers of pumpkin and apple, spiced rosemary, sweet marjoram and handful of thyme. Sometimes a crust was unnecessary; an early New England recipe involved filling a hollowed-out pumpkin with spiced, sweetened milk and cooking it directly in a fire (an English version of the same preparation had the pumpkin stuffed with sliced apples).
A cookbook = un livre de cuisine
To boil = faire bouillir
To strain = égouter, tamiser
A crust = une croûte (= un fond de pâte)
To advocate = préconiser, recommander
To fill = remplir
A layer = une couche
Rosemary = du romarin
Marjoram = de la marjolaine
A handful = une poignée
A recipe = une recette
Hollowed-out = évidé
Sweetened = sucré
Stuffed = garni
Sliced apples = des pommes en tranches

By the early 18th century pumpkin pie had earned a place at the table, as Thanksgiving became an important New England regional holiday. In 1705 the Connecticut town of Colchester famously postponed its Thanksgiving for a week because there wasn’t enough molasses available to make pumpkin pie. Amelia Simmons’ pioneering 1796 “American Cookery” contained a pair of pumpkin pie recipes, one of which similar to today’s custard version.
To earn = gagner
To postpone = reporter, différer
Molasses = mélasse (une sorte de sucre)
Available = disponible
One of which = dont une…

It wasn’t until the mid-19th century, though, that pumpkin pie rose to political significance in the United States as it was injected into the country’s tumultuous debate over slavery. Many of the staunchest abolitionists were from New England, and their favorite dessert soon found mention in novels, poems and broadsides. Sarah Josepha Hale, an abolitionist who worked for decades to have Thanksgiving proclaimed a national holiday, featured the pie in her 1827 anti-slavery novel “Northwood,” describing a Thanksgiving table laden with desserts of every name and description—“yet the pumpkin pie occupied the most distinguished niche.” In 1842 another abolitionist, Lydia Maria Child, wrote her famous poem about a New England Thanksgiving that began, “Over the river, and through the wood” and ended with a shout, “Hurra for the pumpkin pie!”
To rise to = engendrer, provoquer
Slavery = l’esclavage
Staunch = dévoué, fervent, fidèle
A novel = un roman
Broadsides = affiche, prospectus
Laden with = empli/ couvert de

It’s no wonder that, when Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, observers in the Confederacy saw it as a move to impose Yankee traditions on the South. An editorialist in Richmond, Virginia, offered a sardonic explanation of the Yankee Thanksgiving: “This is an annual custom of that people, heretofore celebrated with devout oblations to themselves of pumpkin pie and roast turkey.”
It’s no wonder that = pas étonnant que
A custom = une coutume
Heretofore = jusqu’ici
Oblation = offrande
Turkey = de la dinde

After the Civil War, Thanksgiving—and with it, pumpkin pie—extended its national reach, bolstered by write-ups in women’s magazines like the one that Hale edited. In 1929 Libby’s meat-canning company of Chicago introduced a line of canned pumpkin that soon became a Thanksgiving fixture in its own right, replacing the need for roasting and straining one’s own squash. Next time you open a can, consider the past: the centuries of industrialists, editors, housewives, anti-slavery firebrands, culinary experimenters and Mesoamerican agriculturalists whose combined labors made your pumpkin pie possible.
Bolstered = soutenir, appuyer
write-ups = des critiques
meat-canning = conserve de viande
a fixture = une préparation
a can = une boite de conserve
housewives = les femmes au foyer
firebrands = les fauteurs de trouble