Early Americans in southern New England may have made pumpkin pies, sort of without a crust. They braised pumpkins or filled hollowed-out pumpkin shells with milk, honey, and spices, then baked them.

Native American tribes in the Northeast grew pumpkins. The Native Americans brought pumpkins as gifts to the first settlers and told them about their many uses.

François-Pierre Lavallen was a French cook and the author of one of the most important French cookbooks of the 17th century, Le Vrai Cuisinier Francois (The True French Cook). It was translated and published in England in 1653 as Le Vrai Cuisinier Francois (The French Cook). This cookbook contains a recipe for 'pumpkin pie' which features a pastry crust.

Pumpkin pie - boil good milk, strain it through a straining pan and mix it with sugar, butter, a pinch of salt, and a few almonds to make it very thin. Put it in your batter and bake it. Once baked, sprinkle the sugar on top and serve.

By the 1670s, recipes for "pumpkin pie" began appearing in English cookbooks. Pumpkin pie recipes began to sound more familiar and included spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Recipes often included apples, sultanas, or currants in the stuffing.

It was not until 1796 that a truly American cookbook entitled American Cookery was published, written by Amelia Simmons' American Orphan. This was the first American cookbook to be written and published here and the first to contain recipes for Native American foods. Simmons' pumpkin pudding was baked on the crust and was similar to today's pumpkin pie.

The world's largest pumpkin pie was made at the New Brightman Pumpkin Festival in New Brightman, Ohio, on September 25th, 2010. The final pie weighed 3,699 pounds and measured 20 feet in diameter. These days, home bakers have a plethora of pumpkin-inspired recipes