This time of the year I start thinking of Granny’s Pumpkin Pie. There’s something about the cooler weather and fall colors that call out for the flavors of pumpkin, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger.
While I dearly love Granny’s Pumpkin Pie, I’m afraid my heart has been stolen away by cushaw pie. Truthfully not many people could tell the difference in the 2 pies-however if you’re a pumpkin pie aficionado like me-you’ll totally appreciate the deeper flavor of the cushaw pie.
Cushaw Pie
- 2 cups cooked cushaw
- 1 cup cream
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ginger
- 1/8 teaspoon allspice
- 1 9-inch pie shell
Mix all ingredients until smooth and pour into pie shell. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until done-mine took quite a bit longer than 45 minutes. You want the pie to be firm-so just keep an eye on it.
Pumpkin, cushaw, and even candy roaster pies share most of the same ingredients-but the taste differs slightly with each. I’m not ready to turn down a slice of pumpkin pie anytime soon but if I had a choice I’d choose cushaw pie.
Tipper
I love pumpkin pie but a well made sweet potato pie is awesome. I’ve never known about cushaw squash.
Yummy, thanks for sharing
They all sound deliscious
Eve-I’ve never made a persimmon pie-but I did find a recipe for you. The recipe calls for cinnamon. I’m thinking it wouldn’t hurt to add in the spices the cushaw pie recipe calls for too. If you give it a try let us know how it turns out! Heres the recipe:http://allrecipes.com/recipe/persimmon-pie/
Tipper
Blind Pig The Acorn
Celebrating and Preserving the
Culture of Appalachia
http://www.blindpigandtheacorn.com
Tipper,
I just had to tell this. My betterhalf went down to the garden just checking out the weedy growth and the old plantings. What did he find wandering around gathering up all the begger lice and tickweed he could on his britches leg, but a left over Banana Squash! It’s a right purty thang and weighs about 15 pounds. So, I think one of those crusts he bought will be destined for a Banana Squash pie filling….
It was like finding a cucumber that disappears in the leaves and “up jumps a big old yeller one” when you least expect it…
Thanks Tipper,
That means my Pink Jumbo Banana Squash did a better job producing than we thought…We are thinking it sneaked over to the other side of the garden to avoid those big stampeding cushaws!
I can’t find them here. Do you think I could sub persimmon pulp. I have a lot of that in my freezer? I also have chopped figs.
We grew Cushaw and Pumpkins and Candy Roasters all in Choestoe. And we knew how to make pies from each–and all were popular! I’m just sorry I can’t go out and pick a “home-grown” or two to make fall pies! Thanks for the good recipe! Similar to the one I already had on file!
Joyce-thank you for the comment! Go here to see more about cushaws: https://blindpigandtheacorn.com/blind_pig_the_acorn/2013/09/cutshaw-or-curshaw.html
Sherry-Thank you for the comment! Go here to see what a cushaw looks like-there are many varieties-some are white. https://blindpigandtheacorn.com/blind_pig_the_acorn/2013/09/cutshaw-or-curshaw.html
This brings up the wonderful memory of my Granny; her no nonsense way about tackling anything,using my Papaw’s hack saw to cut a cushaw in rounds for pies. The pieces would drop into her big stainless pan to await further peeling and the pressure cooker. They were so blond and sweet compared to the pumpkin ones. I love them. I haven’t had one for years.
Tipper,
Your Cushaw Pie looks good! My Aunt Toots used to make me a cushaw pie or two every Fall. One time I asked her for the receipe and she named
over all them spices real quick.
I gave up trying to write it down
cause she used too many “pinch of
this and dab of that” for me. She
just knew what to do and I would’t change a thing…Ken
I’m all for cushaw pie. This time of year people eat me out of house and home!
My only use for pumpkin is for jack-o-lanterns and rolling down the mountain and watching it splatter agin the barn. Do cushaws make good jack-o-lanterns? Do they roll good?
I don’t waste the pumpkin pieces. The pigs love them. And I love pig. So that’s how I get my RDI of pumpkin.
Do pigs eat cushaws?
This is so very interesting! I usually have Cushaw pie, but my one cushaw was about the size of a pint jar. I have been baking candy roaster pies (referred to as pamillion in this area)–very smooth and so far everybody loves them. I have started using brown sugar in my recipes, and have experimented with different ingredients.
I recently backed into my cousin’s car, and minor damage to headlight. He would not let me pay for replacement part. Instead he just told me to bake him one of those pies. He had given up on growing green beans because of deer, but wants to grow candy roasters because deer generally avoid squash vines.
Your pie looks fabulous. Tipper, I don’t know how you have time for all you do. Your family is truly blessed.
Please keep in mind, I am garden illiterate. What is cushaw? I am assuming it is a type of squash. Hope you are having a great day. I love pumpkin pie, so I suspect I would love cushaw pie
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe that uses simple ingredients. Now I know what I will do with some of the cushaws I raised this year.
What is cushaw? New to me! I cannot imagine something better than pumpkin! Will have to try this.
Many years ago I made a from scratch pumpkin pie from what the farmers here called an ‘old timey pumpkin.’ It was the best I had ever tasted. It had such an odd shape I thought I was being fooled, but it was as the farmer specified. I had to look up cushaw as I wasn’t familiar with the name. I have seen them, but never used one. I will have to search for one; I’m still searching for candy roasters. You do come up with such fascinating squashes.
OK! Tipper, tomorrow I will try to find the cushaw and make my sweetheart a pie! I just hope it is as good as yours!
Eva Nell
My, that sounds GOOD!!!
Funny timing, Tipper…I bought one of those little “sugar pumpkins” I keep hearing raves about, and cooked it yesterday. My first thought upon tasting was, I think I’ll stick to winter squash!
I finally picked my last little Sow True Seed squash yesterday, and will write up a garden post soon with results. It’s been an odd year!
Never liking pumpkin pie, I fell in love with cushaw at first bite. Chris, a good friend of my mother, never baked with pumpkin, but always with kershaw, as she called it. Her pies were lighter in color than pumpkin ones, a bit more fibrous, and with more subtle spices. I still make them although my daughter prefers pumpkin. So long as it’s pie, her boys don’t care. (A little about Chris. Her given name was Viola, but her siblings all called her Teen. Her future husband hearing that thought her name must be Christine, so he started calling her Chris, a nickname that lasted throughout the rest of her life.)
Tipper,
Our Sow True Seeds via Tipper, planted, turned into a herd of cushaws or as some call them kershaws. They were stampeding all over the garden until they got too big to romp around. Sooo, I have cooked cushaw, placed in two cup bags, in the freezer for pies.
I have made cushaw pies already and the better half bought some crusts for me to make more. I don’t make pie crust often!;o)
My recipe is similar to yours except mine calls for a bit less brown sugar. We top ours with Cool Whip…yummmm!
I have a recipe that uses pumpkin, cream cheese, pudding etc. that I make for Thanksgiving. I plan on exchanging the pumpkin for cushaw in the recipe. I think cushaw has more flavor. We’ll see about that!
Thanks Tipper,
PS…I have more cushaws to cut up. So far they are storing well. I am having trouble giving them away to folks! Now then, they will take a pie already made…go figure!
Tipper, I agree that Cushaw pie is better. The only change I’d suggest in the recipe is substituting some sorghum syrup for part of the brown sugar. If you have any sweet sorghum that’s ‘gone to sugar’that’s even better, but around my house, it doesn’t stay around long enough to do that.
We started with cushaw pies rather than pumpkin a few years ago and I love them both but def prefer cushaw now! It’s a smoother and more subtle flavor I guess…I love them for sure and I like watching the cushaw grow as much as a pumpkin too!
It’s interesting that old-time winter squash like cushaws and candy roasters seem to remain popular among those who trace their love of them back to yesteryear when folks lived closer to the land. I agree that cushaws have a more intense, slightly sweeter taste than pumpkins, and the flesh is not as stringy. Also, they are easier to work up. Now if I just had me a piece of that pie waiting come dinner time, I reckon I’d be at the gates of culinary heaven.
Jim Casada
http://www.jimcasadaoudoors.com
Tip, your gonna have to make one of those pies when I am there. I’d love to taste it. I’m sure I’ll like it!
All the mountain people I’ve known knew how to use what they have to make what they need/want. There was no running to the store for exact ingredients. Their exact ingredients were what they had in the cabinets.
Sugar, honey, molasses, brown sugar, and sorghum were interchangeable, but you have to know how to alter the liquid ingredients to accommodate them. In this same way many squash are interchangeable.
This is one of the things I love about our people, we make-do!
My wife cut up a cushaw yesterday and baked a couple pies for supper! Thanks for sharing this