爲什麼感恩節美國人要吃南瓜派？竟然是因爲她！

一提到感恩節大餐，人們就會想起金黃色的烤火雞和南瓜派。爲什麼美國人過感恩節要吃南瓜派呢？僅僅是因爲秋天是南瓜收穫的季節嗎？其實，南瓜派成爲感恩節主食，和一位女作家有很大關係。

While it’s possible—even probable—that pumpkins were served at the 1621 harvest festival that’s now considered the predecessor to Thanksgiving, attendees definitely didn’t dine on pumpkin pie (there was no butter or wheat flour to make crust).

儘管有可能——甚至有很大可能——南瓜是在1621年豐收節（現在被認爲是感恩節前身）被呈上餐桌的，但當時的參加者絕對沒有吃南瓜派（因爲沒有黃油或小麥粉來做南瓜餅的餅皮）。

The earliest known recipes for pumpkin pie actually come from 17th-century Europe. Pumpkins, like potatoes and tomatoes, were first introduced to Europe in the Columbian Exchange, but Europeans were more comfortable cooking with pumpkins because they were similar to their native gourds.

實際上，最早的南瓜派食譜源於17世紀的歐洲。南瓜和土豆、西紅柿一樣，最初是在“哥倫布大交換”時被引入歐洲的。但是歐洲人更喜歡用南瓜來烹飪的原因是，它們和歐洲本土的葫蘆很相似。

By the 18th century, however, Europeans on the whole lost interest in pumpkin pie. According to HowStuffWorks, Europeans began to prefer apple, pear, and quince pies, which they perceived as more sophisticated. But at the same time pumpkin pie was losing favor in Europe, it was gaining true staple status in America.

然而到了18世紀，歐洲人基本上已經對南瓜派失去了興趣。根據博聞網的研究，這時候的歐洲人開始更喜歡蘋果派、梨派和榲桲派這些更加精緻的派。但南瓜派在歐洲失寵時，卻在美國贏得了真正的主食地位。

quince[kwɪns]: n. 溫柏；柑橘；榲桲，木梨；榲桲果實

In 1796, Amelia Simmons published American Cookery, the first cookbook written and published in the New World colonies. Simmons included two recipes for “pumpkin pudding” cooked in pastry crust. Simmons’s recipes call for “stewed and strained” pumpkin, combined with a mixture of nutmeg, allspice, and ginger.

1796年，艾米麗婭·西蒙斯出版了《美國烹飪》，這是第一本在新大陸殖民地撰寫和出版的食譜。西蒙斯在書中提到了兩種外裹酥皮的“南瓜布丁”。食譜中介紹了它的做法：將南瓜燉熟搗爛，再加入肉豆蔻、多香果和姜等佐料。

But how did pumpkin pie become so irrevocably tied with the Thanksgiving holiday? That has everything to do with Sarah Josepha Hale, a New Hampshire-born writer and editor who is often called the “Godmother of Thanksgiving.” In her 1827 abolitionist novel Northwood, Hale described a Thanksgiving meal complete with “fried chicken floating in gravy,” broiled ham, wheat bread, cranberry sauce, and—of course—pumpkin pie. For more than 30 years, Hale advocated for Thanksgiving to become a national holiday, writing regular editorials and sending letters to five American presidents. Thanksgiving was a symbol for unity in an increasingly divided country, she argued.

但是，南瓜派是如何與感恩節緊密聯繫在一起的呢？這與薩拉·約瑟法·黑爾有關。她是出生於新罕布什爾州的作家和編輯，經常被稱爲“感恩節的教母”。在她1827年的廢奴主義小說《諾斯伍德》中，黑爾描述了一頓感恩節大餐，包括“浸在肉汁裏的炸雞”、烤火腿、小麥麪包、蔓越莓醬，當然還有南瓜派。在後來的三十多年裏，黑爾一直主張把感恩節定爲全國性節日，並且定期發表社論，還給五位美國總統寫過信。她認爲，在這個日益分裂的國家，感恩節是一種團結的象徵。

Abraham Lincoln eventually declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863 (to near-immediate outcry from Southerners, who viewed the holiday as an attempt to enforce Yankee values). Southern governors reluctantly complied with the presidential proclamation, but cooks in the South developed their own unique regional traditions. In the South, sweet potato pie quickly became more popular than New England’s pumpkin pie (mostly because sweet potatoes were easier to come by than pumpkins). Now, pumpkin pie reigns supreme as the most popular holiday pie across most of the United States, although the Northeast prefers apple and the South is split between apple and pecan, another Southern staple.

最終，亞伯拉罕·林肯在1863年宣佈感恩節爲全國性節日（這立即引起了南方人的強烈抗議，因爲他們認爲這是北方佬試圖把他們的價值觀強加在他們身上）。南方的州長們不情願地遵守了總統的公告，但是當地的廚師們卻發展出了他們自己獨特的傳統。在南方，紅薯派比新英格蘭的南瓜派更受歡迎（主要是因爲在南方紅薯比南瓜更好種）。現在，南瓜派在美國大部分地區都是最受歡迎的節日派，儘管東北部地區更喜歡蘋果派，南部地區則更喜歡蘋果派和另一種南方主食——山核桃派。