[Debra Freeman isn’t a big pie person. But if she had to pick between sweet potato and pumpkin — the two autumnal pies that have come to define the Thanksgiving season — the choice is a simple one: Sweet potato. For her, it’s not so much a matter of taste. She thinks back to her grandmother, who learned the recipe from her grandmother before her, and so forth. Sweet potato pie was always the dessert gracing their holiday table.
These days, it’s near impossible to escape the pumpkin mania that comes with the first yellowing leaf. From our coffee to our candles, that spicy aroma has infiltrated our culture. But in many homes, particularly African American ones, sweet potato pie remains supreme.
Though they have their nuances, the two types of pies are not so different: Both have a sweet, custard filling, warmly spiced, and held by that flaky pastry. Sweet potato might be a little sweeter; pumpkin a little spicier.
But which one is actually the better pie? It’s a hotly contested debate — one that might come down to, mainly, where you were born. It’s easy to simplify the debate as Black (sweet potato) versus White (pumpkin). But the actual history behind the two holiday staples is less neat.
For example, pumpkin pie didn’t become a symbol for American Thanksgiving until the book “Northwood: A Tale of New England” by Sarah Josepha Hale, an activist and abolitionist, was published in 1827. At that point, pumpkin became associated with the holiday for the North, while Southern cuisine favored sweet potatoes for the filling.
Sarah O’Brien, the founder of a local bakery chain Little Tart Bakeshop, offered pumpkin pie ahead of Thanksgiving, rather than sweet potato, and it’s become their best-selling option.
Neither pumpkin nor sweet potatoes are indigenous to the United States specifically, or necessarily native to White or Black cultures. Sweet potatoes were brought back to Europe from Central and South America and had made it to England by the 16th century. They were then brought up to New England in the 1700s.
In the South, sweet potatoes became an important crop, more common than pumpkins, so they were used to fill pies, an English tradition emulated by American colonists. This makes sweet potato pie a soul food staple, reminiscent of yams native to West Africa, where many African Americans were from.
Importantly, sweet potato pie played a role in resistance, as seen in examples like George Washington Carver, who circulated a recipe in the 1930s, and Georgia Gilmore, who sold her famous pies to fund the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
A few years ago, Rosy McGee brought her 30 sweet potato pies to Ferguson, Missouri following the killing of Michael Brown. “The sweet potato pie has been one of those healing factors for me,” McGee said, emphasizing its power to mean a lot to people at the time of Thanksgiving and provide comfort.
Ultimately, both pies are the embodiment of American culture, says Hysmith, created through the blending of tradition and global influences. Either pumpkin or sweet potato becomes the most American thing anyone can eat.
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