一提到感恩节大餐，人们就会想起金黄色的烤火鸡和南瓜派。为什么美国人过感恩节要吃南瓜派呢？仅仅是因为秋天是南瓜收获的季节吗？其实，南瓜派成为感恩节主食，和一位女作家有很大关系。
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).
尽管有可能——甚至有很大可能——南瓜是在1621年丰收节（现在被认为是感恩节前身）被呈上餐桌的，但当时的参加者绝对没有吃南瓜派（因为没有黄油或小麦粉来做南瓜饼的饼皮）。
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.
实际上，最早的南瓜派食谱源于17世纪的欧洲。南瓜和土豆、西红柿一样，最初是在“哥伦布大交换”时被引入欧洲的。但是欧洲人更喜欢用南瓜来烹饪的原因是，它们和欧洲本土的葫芦很相似。
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世纪，欧洲人基本上已经对南瓜派失去了兴趣。根据博闻网的研究，这时候的欧洲人开始更喜欢苹果派、梨派和榅桲派这些更加精致的派。但南瓜派在欧洲失宠时，却在美国赢得了真正的主食地位。
quince[kwɪns]: n. 温柏；柑橘；榅桲，木梨；榅桲果实
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，艾米丽娅·西蒙斯出版了《美国烹饪》，这是第一本在新大陆殖民地撰写和出版的食谱。西蒙斯在书中提到了两种外裹酥皮的“南瓜布丁”。食谱中介绍了它的做法：将南瓜炖熟捣烂，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，南瓜派是如何与感恩节紧密联系在一起的呢？这与萨拉·约瑟法·黑尔有关。她是出生于新罕布什尔州的作家和编辑，经常被称为“感恩节的教母”。在她1827年的废奴主义小说《诺斯伍德》中，黑尔描述了一顿感恩节大餐，包括“浸在肉汁里的炸鸡”、烤火腿、小麦面包、蔓越莓酱，当然还有南瓜派。在后来的三十多年里，黑尔一直主张把感恩节定为全国性节日，并且定期发表社论，还给五位美国总统写过信。她认为，在这个日益分裂的国家，感恩节是一种团结的象征。
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.
最终，亚伯拉罕·林肯在1863年宣布感恩节为全国性节日（这立即引起了南方人的强烈抗议，因为他们认为这是北方佬试图把他们的价值观强加在他们身上）。南方的州长们不情愿地遵守了总统的公告，但是当地的厨师们却发展出了他们自己独特的传统。在南方，红薯派比新英格兰的南瓜派更受欢迎（主要是因为在南方红薯比南瓜更好种）。现在，南瓜派在美国大部分地区都是最受欢迎的节日派，尽管东北部地区更喜欢苹果派，南部地区则更喜欢苹果派和另一种南方主食——山核桃派。
翻译：李行
编审：陈丹妮
英文来源：Mental Floss
注：本文转载自中国日报网英语点津
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