Pumpkin pie



Public Domain Picture

 Today a kind person in my workplace brought a pumpkin pie to share. I had a piece. I love pumpkin pie. As I ate it I thought, if there's one thing that can reconcile me to the shortening days, the lengthening darkness, and the steady, incremental decrease in the outdoor temperature, that one thing is pumpkin pie.

Pumpkins are pretty, and the pie made from them has pleasant cultural associations -- Halloween and Thanksgiving. In fact, with Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's all approaching, we're headed into one of the most enjoyable times of the year.

So why do I look at the holidays and think, But they'll pass so fast, and then it will be the darkest, coldest, time of year with no holiday to enjoy! How come when I contemplate January and February I don't think, They'll pass so fast and then it will be spring! In Keats's "Ode on Melancholy," he says melancholy comes from realizing how brief the joy is--only of course he says it more beautifully:

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

But why isn't it equally true--or is it?--that joy comes from realizing how brief the melancholy is?

Of course, one could live in the present and enjoy the day without worrying about tomorrow. Seems like someone important once said something like that.

So in this day to live in and enjoy, I ate pumpkin pie. My parents knew various people from the Netherlands who had heard of that American treat pumpkin pie and wanted to try it, but all, when they ate it, would shrug, and say, "It tastes like carrots." Maybe you have to grow up with it to like it, so that when you eat it you don't just taste it but you taste family and holidays. I don't like carrots and I do like pumpkin pie, so they can't taste that alike. They both have beta-carotene, from whence they derive their orange color, so that must make a similarity. Maybe Dutch carrots are different from American carrots. Also, I suspect that Dutch carrots may be cooked with lots of butter and sugar. Butter and sugar are important in the Dutch scheme of food. My grandma ate a Dutch rusk with butter and sugar on it most days with tea as a between-meal snack. Only it wasn't a snack, it was tea. It was not random, it was a particular time of day when one would sit down and have a cup of tea with a little something sweet and wholesome. Then, back to work. Just to wander all over the place in terms of topics, my dad said after his dad and others of his dad's generation had sat for a while for tea or some other reason, they would indicate it was time to get back to work by saying, "Well, this won't buy the baby's new shirt. . . . Nor pay for the one he's wearing."

Back to pumpkin pie. I was talking to the lady who brought the pie about pies in general. She like fruit pies the best, and I mentioned my dad likes berry pies the best. I said for a fruit or berry pie, I like the pie warm with ice cream on it. But for pumpkin pie (which alongside pecan pie is what I like best), if you have topping, it should be whipped cream. And a cup of coffee on the side. This led to a connection in my brain, which I did not share with my co-worker, to a song with a line about coffee and pumpkin pie. Now, having researched on the web, I have (re)discovered it comes from the song, "Sleigh Ride," which has the lines:

There's a happy feeling nothing in the world can buy
When they pass around the coffee and pumpkin pie.
It'll nearly be like a picture print by Currier and Ives.
These wonderful things are the things we remember all through our lives.

True enough, isn't it? My sister likes to sing a little song that we learned from a commercial for canned pork and beans:

Simple pleasures are the best,
All the little things that make you smile and glow.
Life's simple pleasures are the best, are the best, in all the world.

Well, so pumpkin pie is a simple pleasure, one to be enjoyed in the moment, in the day, without worry for the future, and the pleasure becomes a wonderful thing we remember all through our lives.

Diagram that sentence.