To Prepare a Tourte of Domestic Pumpkin

Ingredients:

Scrape the domestic pumpkin, which should be tender and sweet. If it is big take out its seeds; if small, there is no need to.  Cook it in good fat broth.  When it is done, take it out and squeeze the broth out of it.  Then beat it with knives on a table that is not of walnut.  For every pound of beaten pumpkin put in six ounces of a grated creamy cheese, four ounces of fresh ricotta, three ounces of a soft creamy cheese, eight eggs, six ounces of sugar and an ounce of pepper and cinnamon together.  Mix everything together and with that filling make a tourte with a rather thick lower shell and an upper one made like shutter louvres.  Bake it in an oven or braise it.  When it is almost done, give it a glazing with sugar and rosewater.  When it is done serve it hot… You could do any sort of pumpkin in the same way.  And you can put a little milk into the filling mixture. (Scappi, pp. 484./Book V R. 106.)

Ingredients:

4 C. pumpkin

2 C. broth

½ C. Goat cheese crumbled

1/3 C. ricotta

8 eggs

½ C. Sugar

½ tsp black pepper

1 tsp ground cinnamon and mace

2 Tbs sugar

1 tbs rosewater

Pie Crust:

1 C. butter

1 tsp salt

2 ½ C. flour

1 C. water

Mix butter, salt and flour together, until a crumbling texture.  Slowly add water, 1 Tbs. at a time, until a smooth ball forms. You may not need all the water, use just enough to form the dough.

Redaction:

First thing, I had to find a “period” type of pumpkin.  I went with Cinderella pumpkin as the most period I could find.  It helps that this was done during fall, right before Halloween.  Get a small one.  The small one will make 6 pies.

Next, I cut the pumpkin into large chunks, taking out the seeds, and took off the rind.  The inner pumpkin cut into smaller pieces. 

You don’t need a lot.  I used 1/6 of the pumpkin to get the necessary amount of 4 cups. 

Boil these in water in broth of your choice until tender.  Drain then smoosh until smooth.

Except for the 2 Tbs of sugar and 1 Tbs of rosewater (those come later), add in all your other ingredients until the entire mixture is smooth. 

If you will notice, I added a bit of mace to the pie.  I like mace and I cut down the pepper.  Last time I added as much pepper as the recipe called for, I blew out the roof of my mouth.  Fresh pepper is easier to find today then in period so be stingy with your pepper.  Seriously.  These tweaks are personal preferences.  Try the recipe as called for, then modify with what you like that is in period.

Roll out your dough.  Make a thicker bottom then top.  Here you can see I made thin strips of crust lattice style with a climbing vine patter from a wooden dough press. 

Same for the leaves.  I couldn’t do a full “shutter” so I did a nice bit of lattice work with leaves to make it pretty.

Before pulling the pie from the oven, brush with a rosewater and sugar mixture to glaze the top.