Get Sleepy: Sleep meditation and stories - The Sleepy History of Pumpkin Spice

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Starting point is 00:03:07 Hey friends, welcome to Get Sleepy, where Thanks so much for listening and supporting the show. Tonight our autumnal and Halloween themes continue with another wonderful sleepy history. We are so glad the concept of our sleepy history stories is well adored by so many of you. Our writers love creating them, tonight's being written by Alicia Steffen, and our narrators, myself included, love reading them too. Tonight, that pleasure falls to my friend Chloe. Although it was originally limited to use in desserts, the flavoring of pumpkin spice started appearing as a coffee drink at the turn of the 21st century, mainly in North America to begin with, but eventually spreading in popularity in many

Starting point is 00:04:26 other parts of the world. The ubiquitous spice of autumn has now expanded to even more unexpected products, such as cereal and candles. In tracing the unlikely trajectory of pumpkin spice, it's necessary to ask ourselves what that smell, that flavor actually means, and why it's become such a cultural phenomenon. To do that, we'll take a trip through history, starting with the origins of the spice trade and making our way to the counter of the modern coffee shop. First though, we would love to have your support on Get Sleepy Premium, where you can enjoy over 800 full-length stories and meditations, including dozens of long-length episodes to keep you company throughout the night. If you're enjoying the show but find it a bit of a nuisance

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Starting point is 00:06:51 remind yourself that this is your time to accept there is nothing more to be done today. Whether your day felt easy or difficult, positive or negative, or perhaps even more likely a mixture of all four, it's now a thing of the past, so leave it, and allow your focus to come to the here and now. I know that at this moment, when you get into bed and activity comes to a stop, it can be prime time for that state of mind we sometimes refer to as the chimp brain to burst into action. The chimp brain tends to think irrationally, with excessive, catastrophised emotion towards things. If that sounds familiar to you, you are certainly not alone, but by focusing your attention on the present moment, by taking a deep breath in and releasing a steady exhale. You can reassure your mind that there's nothing to get worked up or worried about.

Starting point is 00:08:38 All you need right now is rest, so permit yourself to grasp the opportunity for it. As you continue to relax, imagine the crunch of dry leaves underfoot and the delightful coolness of a perfect autumn day. Even if you're not living in a place where it is currently autumn, you can be there tonight. This is where our story begins. As September approaches, people all over some parts of the Western Hemisphere will be deluged with products, evoking pumpkin spice. This will happen most dramatically in North America, where the humble pumpkin has always held a certain nostalgic sway. However, in this era of globalization, whether it's as a scent or a flavor, pumpkin spice has also infiltrated other parts of the world, establishing new fans. One needn't look too far to find a Starbucks pumpkin spice latte, and avid shoppers may

Starting point is 00:10:49 also find this surprising spice in cereal, hand lotion, candles, and countless other products. The great irony is that the numerous elements of the mix called pumpkin spice originated far from the land of autumn pumpkin patches and trick-or-treating. Rather, its ingredients can all be traced back to tropical climates, mostly in Southeast Asia, with the rest coming from the Caribbean. And their use is far older than one might think. First, we should establish that there isn't anybody, anywhere, harvesting a thing called pumpkin spice. Rather, it is a mix of other commonly used spices, consisting at its most basic of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice.

Starting point is 00:12:17 With the exception of allspice, which originated in the Caribbean and central Mexico, all the ingredients for a basic pumpkin spice come from what was known as the Spice Islands, or more formally, the Maluku Islands, near Indonesia. The use of these individual spices goes back thousands of years. In fact, scientists have identified nutmeg on shards of pottery unearthed in the Banda Islands of Indonesia dating from 3,500 years ago. When Europeans eventually learned of such spices, they

Starting point is 00:13:13 became obsessed with them, stopping at nothing to import as many as they could. They were used to season food, but also for medicinal purposes. Various mixtures of spices were prescribed to strengthen people in the colder seasons and to address various ailments. and to address various ailments. In the first century, Pliny the Elder wrote that cinnamon was worth fifteen times the price of silver. Ginger was also highly prized, valued for both its taste and its digestive properties.

Starting point is 00:14:19 This spice mania continued throughout the medieval period, resulting in a tragic and deadly plundering of the spice islands by European traders. of the Spice Islands by European traders. The Dutch were so hungry for nutmeg that in the late 1600s, they traded away the colony of New Amsterdam to the British in exchange for control of the Banda Island of Pulau Run. It remained a colony of the Netherlands until the mid-20th century. Meanwhile, New Amsterdam became New York, which did not stay in British control for quite as long.

Starting point is 00:15:08 While spices were at their height of European popularity, there is evidence that Westerners were already experimenting with the perfect combinations, some of which resembled the future pumpkin spice. A book from the 1390s describes a French spice mix called Le Monagier du Paris. It was made from 17 parts ginger, 4 parts cinnamon, 2 parts sugar, 2 parts cloves, and also contained a spice called Grains of Paradise that was closely related to cardamom. This spice mix was alternately known as pudre douce or sweet powder. Medievalist Jessica Savage from Princeton University described a spice she called

Starting point is 00:16:29 the original steak sauce of 14th century Europe. Its name was chamomile and it contained cinnamon, ginger, clove, and occasionally was augmented with nutmeg. By the 17th century, spices had become so widely available that a funny thing happened. In an interview with USA Today Networks, New York University food studies professor Krishnendu Ray explained that transition. He said, the elites turned away from it as exotic spices, such as nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon, no longer signaled an exclusive lifestyle.

Starting point is 00:17:40 Spices had become too cheap and ubiquitous to signify social distinction. Instead, trends moved toward ingredient-focused cuisine that allowed the actual flavor of the main ingredient to dominate the dish. This is an ethos that still dominates today in some foodie circles. However, for some reason spices were still hanging around in desserts. Ray theorizes that desserts were considered hanging around in desserts.

Starting point is 00:18:25 Ray theorizes that desserts were considered more feminine or childish and therefore allowed to be more cloying. Whatever the case, we probably owe pumpkin spice to this exception, because spicing cakes and other sweet treats continued. Still, you're probably wondering how the famous spice combination went from steak sauce to getting mixed up in pumpkin. After all, it's certainly not a steak sauce latte that has conquered autumn the world over.

Starting point is 00:19:16 The answer lies in the United States, where a parallel obsession with the big round gourd was set to evolve. As early as the 1600s, about when the Dutch were preparing to trade away New Amsterdam, on the shores of the future United States were introducing European settlers to pumpkins. Food historian Sarah Wasburg-Johnson points out that desserts rich in spices were already being served in Europe and North America, associated strongly with the festivities surrounding the holidays. It wasn't long before American colonists applied that familiar taste of so many cakes and breads to pumpkin products, eventually resulting in today's autumnal icon, the pumpkin pie. A 1798 reprint of the book American Cookery by Amelia Simmons contains two recipes for spice-filled pumpkin pie. One of them features nutmeg and ginger.

Starting point is 00:21:11 The other is a variation containing allspice and ginger. Certainly, by the 19th century, the American romance with pumpkins was well underway. Washington Irving gave the Orange Gourd a starring role in his iconic story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Pumpkins took center stage as carving canvases for Jack-o-Lanterns at both Thanksgiving and Halloween celebrations. As the Industrial Revolution took hold and more people flocked to the cities, the humble pumpkin took on a more romantic role, highly associated as it was, with small rural farms. A pumpkin was too bulky to turn up on a city vegetable cart. As a result, for the most part, this larger, more unwieldy form of squash was used as animal feed. According to American studies, historian Cindy Ott, in light of ideological friction between the Yankee farmers of the North

Starting point is 00:22:46 and the wealthy white plantation owners of the South, a divide also occurred when it came to feelings about pumpkin. In the South, it was too small scale a crop to be respected, and was associated with poverty. In the north, however, where Yankee ingenuity and independent small farms were idealized, the pumpkin was a nostalgic symbol of independence, which even became associated with the abolitionist movement. This was where its influence really took hold. By the late 1800s, pumpkins were showing up in art and literature with a decidedly nostalgic vibe. American landscape painter Winslow Homer painted pumpkin patches,

Starting point is 00:24:05 and they also appeared sometimes in romantic poems. Images of life around the pumpkin patch served to reconnect people to the rural life they had left behind. It felt simple and wholesome. And in a post-Civil War America, the Southern distaste for Northern values and abolitionism eventually gave way to a national observance of Thanksgiving, pumpkin pie and all that came with it.

Starting point is 00:24:53 With pumpkin pie now a fixture, it was only a matter of time until someone tried to make it easier to produce such a treat. In 1929, the Libby brand launched a line of canned pumpkin. This made it so much simpler to bake a pumpkin pie, but there was still the bothersome need to hand grind all the spices. In the early 1930s, a spice company called Thompson and Taylor came to the rescue marketing what they called ready-mixed pumpkin pie spice. Their 1933 ad for the concoction declared, at 10 cents, one packet was enough for twelve pies.

Starting point is 00:26:10 Thompson and Taylor reportedly had nine spices in that product. Sarah Waspurg Johnson takes a guess, surmising those were cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, star anise, cardamom, black pepper, and possibly mace. Not only was this a more convenient way for bakers to spice their pies, way for bakers to spice their pies. It eliminated the need for people, supposedly, to buy nine separate spices. It was an easy fix, promising them a foolproof product every time. product every time. Not to be outdone, McCormick Spice Company launched their own version of pumpkin spice just a few years later. However, theirs was supposed to also be useful for gingerbread. Perhaps that's why they only explicitly named four spices, which were ginger, cinnamon,

Starting point is 00:27:39 nutmeg, and cloves, and then made the vague assertion that there were other additional spices. With both pumpkin and spices now in ready-made form, similar desserts proliferated throughout the 20th century. The same flavor profile that made a good pumpkin pie was also suitable for cakes, bars, and cookies. Alongside the baked goods, the nostalgia surrounding pumpkins and pumpkin farmers continued to grow. By the mid-19th century, it was common for city-goers to make excursions to the countryside in order to purchase ornamental pumpkins in the autumn.

Starting point is 00:28:48 Farmers who had formerly been raising the humble squashes as animal feed, discovered they could make far more money producing them as decorations. According to Cindy Ott, pumpkin production continued to rapidly increase. Whereas farmers had harvested 71,700 tons in 1949, that number more than doubled to 195,300 tons by 1959. Meanwhile in keeping with the mood of the 1950s, the holiday of Halloween was evolving from a night for tricksters into a wholesome, family-centric event. When examining the current popularity of pumpkin spice, it's important to note how all these factors worked together to prepare it forward. In both the personal and popular imagination, pumpkins, jack-o'-lanterns, and pumpkin pies were linked to all American childhood memories.

Starting point is 00:30:36 Those experiences were soon to be reflected back to both children and adults in the media, just as they had been previously in books and art. books and art. In 1966, the animated television special, It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, was eagerly watched by 49% of all its television viewers in the United States, ensuring that pumpkins would be forever ensconced in the happy memories of decades of American children.

Starting point is 00:31:30 By the early 1970s, pumpkins were a symbol of half and home and a collective memory of an almost mythical American upbringing. But this was not the end of the pumpkin spice story. In 1971, the company that would one day rocket pumpkin spice to stardom was just being formed. A whole bean coffee company opened in Seattle, and it went by the name of Starbucks. In the coffee-obsessed world of today, it's hard to imagine a time when a person couldn't order a drink at a Starbucks store, but they really just sold beans until the mid-80s. In 1986, however, the business had expanded the company to their former head of marketing, who had left Starbucks a couple of years prior to start his own coffee drink company called

Starting point is 00:32:58 Il Gernale. That man, Howard Schultz, combined his two companies and began expanding. By 1989, there were 46 Starbucks stores across the Pacific Northwest and Midwest of the United States. Schultz had always been a proponent of selling drinks rather than just beans, so the coffee bar version of Starbucks that we all know today began to really take shape under his ownership. Perhaps most notably for the flavored coffee timeline, as he took the helm of the Starbucks brand, Schultz tapped an invention from one of his Il Giunale employees and introduced the eggnog latte during the holidays.

Starting point is 00:34:11 No modern listener needs to be told how the Starbucks brand expanded across the globe over the next two decades. Suffice to say, the company had nearly 40,000 stores worldwide in 2023. But what may be less common knowledge is how their flavored offerings evolved. In 2002, the company introduced a second holiday flavor, the peppermint mocha. Then, in 2003, the pivotal moment in pumpkinkin Spice Mania occurred. The Pumpkin Spice Latte, now known simply as the PSL, in a nod to the notation on the paper cup, was launched. The drink that would take over autumnal pop culture was developed in the Starbucks liquid lab, which was located on the seventh floor of Starbucks' headquarters.

Starting point is 00:35:39 Its recipe was not an accident or a spur of the moment concoction. While most sources agree that it was certainly not the first pumpkin spice coffee drink ever sold, it became the most consequential. consequential. The team developing the recipe tried different versions of pumpkin pie, quickly followed by shots of espresso in order to land on the most pleasing flavor profile. In the end, the drink itself contained no spice at all. The flavoring in the actual coffee currently consists of pumpkin puree, sugar, and milk topped with whipped cream. But the spice is added as a sprinkle on the top, and it works together. In this way, unlike a pumpkin spice mix, which contains no pumpkin, the drink gets the entire pumpkin pie treatment.

Starting point is 00:37:14 In the McCormick tradition, that spice atop the whipped cream contains the fantastic four. contains the fantastic four. Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and clove. In just the first decade of the PSL debut on the Starbucks menu. 200 million pumpkin spice lattes were sold. Within a few years, Facebook and Instagram users were posting their PSL moments, driving the product to new heights of popularity. In 2012, a shortage of pumpkin spice latte ingredients, after an early season rush, led led news outlets to declare a pumpkin emergency, and playing off the unique sizing of the Starbucks cups, further called it a grande problem.

Starting point is 00:38:38 By 2014, the PSL had its own Twitter account. In 2023, Starbucks said their following on the account was in the millions. Piggybacking on the success of the latte, Starbucks added pumpkin cream cold brew in 2019, and an iced pumpkin outsold the hot latte in 2020, and with the drinks launching as early as August, that doesn't seem surprising. However, the BSL reigns supreme in the heart of pop culture. Pumpkin spice love has continued to this day. Forbes, Starbucks stated that it had sold more than 424 million PSLs in the US alone by the year 2019. Adding to the nostalgia of the drink, even while sipping their cold brews,

Starting point is 00:40:26 consumers were offered a hotline they could dial where they could listen to a crackling fire or a hayride through a pumpkin patch. The madcap success of the PSL made consumers hungry for more pumpkin spice in every area of their lives. that the pumpkin spice industry now grosses about $500 million annually. With each passing year, it appears in more products. Eager to cash in on the bonanza, retailers seemed to debut their pumpkin spice was added to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. As the pumpkin spice latte enters its third decade,

Starting point is 00:41:58 consumers will once again leave their lawn chairs in the dog days of summer and queue up at the coffee shop to look ahead to autumn. The embrace of pumpkin spice is not really as much about pumpkin pie as it is about sensory memories and happy feelings. For those who dislike autumn and who are unmoved by its iconic harvest time holidays, the taste and smell of pumpkin spice must hold little appeal. However, for the many people who have fond memories or fantasies of chilly evenings by the fire, of walks under autumn foliage, or fantasies of chilly evenings by the fire,

Starting point is 00:43:09 of walks under autumn foliage, or, most of all, of happy times around holiday tables with friends and family. Pumpkin Spice is a doorway to the past. It can even show you a past you never experienced, if your imagination craves it. Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, or even pumpkin. None of these elements could pull in the memory of good times. And that is why fans of the autumn are in love with them. You I'm going to go ahead and start the video. You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You. you

Get Sleepy: Sleep meditation and stories - The Sleepy History of Pumpkin Spice

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