“Sweet Potato Pie or Pumpkin Pie?”

Sweet Potato Pie or Pumpkin Pie?

HistoryMaker Sallie Ann Robinson

Growing up, my grandmother [Peggy Truley] would cook us what HistoryMaker Sallie Ann Robinson (1958-), a chef and culinary historian who authored the cookbooks, Gullah Home Cooking the Dafuskie Way (2014) and Cooking the Gullah Way, Morning, Noon, and Night (2007), would call “belly-filling meals.”[1] In Robinson’s household, food did not go to waste:

“My mom then would go over and used to could go to the bakery and fill up a brown paper bag all you can for one dollar, so she'd put all this bread in this bag and bring it home, a couple of bags for one dollar, and we'd eat as much as we can, but then she'd turn it into a bread pudding 'cause food was not--did not go to waste. We were not allowed to waste food. And, oh, my god, sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, oh. My mom even made key lime pie, lemon meringue pie. She was a great cook (laughter). And she didn't let not knowing stop her…That's what I think was fascinating about the food we ate 'cause they were different but made from the same stuff everybody else had. She just didn't mind taking a chance trying something else, and we always had a bellyful…”[2]

Robinson also recalled cornbread being a big part of their family’s diet; they had pans of it every day. Like Robinson, the dessert I remember the most growing up as a kid was cornbread, or at least that’s what I mainly focused on because that was my favorite dessert. My grandmother was the designated chef in our family, yet only sometimes did she make cornbread the ‘old-fashioned’ way. Looking back, we ate cornbread alongside our meals, but Granny made hers sweet, so I considered it dessert. On the topic of other desserts, I believe I missed the golden age of when I was supposed to become a devout pie-lover. Apple pies, peach pies, buttermilk pies, pear pies, sweet potato pie and pumpkin pies – that’s what she baked. However, none of it stuck! She told me that at a young age, you develop tastebuds based upon what your parents liked or didn’t like, and my mom was never a huge fan of pies unless it was sweet potato pie. Specifically, Granny said that I “crossed the street and never came back” but that I would “come back as I got older.” This was all about pies. When I ultimately asked her, “Pumpkin pie or sweet potato pie,” she responded:

“Sweet potato because that’s what I grew up on…Pumpkin pie? That wasn’t so much of a black thing. We always had sweet potatoes even during slavery, not so much pumpkin…In most plantations, they had a lot of apple and peach trees, and you don’t know nothing about fried peach pie! Preserving, back then, was important, too.”  

She was able to tell me about so many kinds of pies and their relation to black cookery, but somehow, we always circled back to discussing sweet potato pie.

The Honorable HistoryMaker Deborah A. Batts

Naturally, “sweet potato pie” yielded the most results in the archive, and when most people recalled the smells that they could remember from their grandmother’s or mother’s kitchen during their childhood, sweet potato pie was always mentioned before pumpkin pie, if pumpkin pie was mentioned at all. In fact, when I searched for “pumpkin pie,” I would ironically find more information about sweet potato pie. Among many interviewees’ “favorites” videos, sweet potato pie was consistently mentioned as a favorite food. According to the Honorable HistoryMaker Deborah A. Batts, the first openly gay federal judge who served as a U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York, if sweet potato pie was involved, there was no need to fill yourself with other desserts, not even fruitcake:

“And oh, you know, I thought I would like fruitcake because I like the smell of rum, then I didn't realize there were actually were pieces of fruit in it and so, you know. I gave it a try and, and actually as I matured and my tastes became, you know, more subtle I actually did discover that I liked fruitcake, and my mother's fruitcake. But still to this day, it would never be something that I would take over sweet potato pie.”[3]

HistoryMaker Leona Barr-Davenport

As I looked through the archives for more commentary on pumpkin pie, I started to realize that it wasn’t embedded in nostalgic and familial conversations like sweet potato pie was. Whenever sweet potato pie was mentioned, it typically preceded or followed an ode to how many family members showed care through cooking (desserts) for their relatives. However, HistoryMaker Leona Barr-Davenport (1957-), a corporate chief executive and former president and CEO of the Atlanta Business League, reflected on her mother’s [Mary Brown Barr] personality by how she cooked and provided for her family and community. Barr-Davenport expressed her love through cooking and made sure everyone was fed – even when they had little-to-nothing to eat:

“They knew that if you were hungry, if you stop by, if you said you were hungry, you were going to get something to eat… But she was just known for giving. If you, if one of children or one of her sisters or someone brought someone to our home, if there was not enough food for everybody, then she didn't feed anybody. But she would make it stretch and so she was known for cooking cakes…”[4]

Being an “avid cook” [5] and one of the best biscuit-makers in Johnsonville, South, it makes perfect sense that she was known her for her delicious pound-cakes, raisin cakes, and, lastly, pumpkin pies.

Ultimately, before I settled on which was better, sweet potato pie or pumpkin pie, I asked some of my friends and family members which one did they prefer. Everyone said sweet potato pie. My mother [Isatu Truley] was the last person I called to ask this question, and she responded:

“…I ‘outta hang the phone up on you! If you ask anybody this question, and they say anything other than sweet potato pie, you should hang up! The most tasty and the most celebrated pie is sweet potato pie…The other debate is that some people actually make sweet potato pie with yams, but that’s different conversation…”

 A Sweet Student Ambassador Update:

This week, we were tasked with determining which was better, sweet potato pie or pumpkin pie. Although a lighthearted assignment, I thoroughly enjoyed reaching out to my mother and grandmother for references as well. I realized that talking to my grandmother about the smells and eats of my childhood resulted in me conducting a semi-oral history with her. She has a lot of knowledge that I hope to justly document one day.

Next month, the various student ambassadors will officially begin our outreach plans on campus.

Notes

[1] Sallie Ann Robinson (The HistoryMakers A2017.045), interviewed by Denise Gines, February 9, 2017, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 5, story 6, Sallie Ann Robinson remembers recipes from her childhood

[2] Robinson on how her mother would feed her household.

[3] The Honorable Deborah A. Batts (The HistoryMakers A2007.239), interviewed by Adrienne Jones, August 15, 2007, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 3, The Honorable Deborah Batts describes her mother's cooking, pt. 1

[4] Leona Barr-Davenport (The HistoryMakers A2010.078), interviewed by Denise Gines, July 12, 2010, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 1, story 8, Leona Barr-Davenport remembers her mother's personality

[5] Leona Barr-Davenport.