Pumpkin pie is pretty familiar to anyone living in the US, and for many of us it's the desert we eat on Thanksgiving day. In fact pumpkin pie is second in popularity (13%) according to the American Pie Council, just a few points behind apple pie (19%).
Now that we agree pumpkin pie (my favorite) is likely to be eaten by most of us during the holidays, here are a few fun facts you might not know about pies (click for more pie facts).
- Pumpkin pie was first eaten at the pilgrim's second Thanksgiving meal, not the first.
- Pie isn't just for desert. 35% of Americans have eaten pie for breakfast, 66% have enjoyed pie at lunch time and a whooping 59% like munching on pie for a midnight snack.
- Planning to enjoy Thanksgiving diner at someone else's house? Pie (29%) is what most people will bring with cake at 17% and cookies 15% … pretty amazing.
Pumpkin Pie in Numbers
But this article isn't about some interesting, and rather meaningless facts about pumpkin pie.
I realized that many people don't understand where infographics come from, mainly because we're not very familiar with the information being presented. When I found this infographic about pumpkin pie, on the website Visual.ly that shares the best infographics online, I thought it was the perfect way to show how an infographic is created. Hope you enjoy it!
So let's start with the pies, the end result of this exercise … or wait, did they bake the pies to create the numbers and infographic? They really did bake the pies to eat as they do it every year, after carving the pumpkins for Halloween.
We're used to reading recipes in a cookbook, basically the ingredients listed in the upper left, first for the pie crust and then the pie filling. Listed like this, it's surprising how many ingredients go into a great pumpkin pie. We rarely calculate the calories, carbs or proteins when cooking, so we'll skip over them too.
At the bottom of the chart, they had to calculate percentages for each of the ingredients, so they knew how to divide the pie.
What I love most about this infographic is the upper pie, 100% delicious for taste! The nutritional mass which is similar to what we get on food packaging, tells us that only 3% of the pie is protein, and the rest is fat 42% and carbohydrates 55%. There are 340 calories per piece of pie but only 3% came from the pumpkin which is pretty scary.
Pumpkin Pie – Bake It or Buy It?
So the real question is whether you're going to bake your own pumpkin pie or buy one?
It's been more than 30 years since I baked two pumpkin pies, for my first Thanksgiving dinner with my future in-laws. The pie crust was easy and I followed a recipe for the filling. I used a real pumpkin but there was one important piece of information I missed or maybe it wasn't in the cookbook (or maybe it was on a can of condensed milk because it was years before the Internet?). The pies looked beautiful but sadly, there wasn't much taste to them and I thought for years, it was because I didn't boil the pumpkin long enough.
You need to use small, sugar pumpkins to make pumpkin pie!
Needless to say, I now used pumpkin from a can, or if I don't have enough time, I stop by the bakery for a nice fresh, pumpkin pie. Your other option is to invite friends over who love to bake and ask them to bring desert.
Wishing everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving and …
Please share your pumpkin pie stories by leaving a comment below.
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