What’s the deal with the PSL? Why has a Starbucks drink gripped the nation in its warm, cozy hands and why do we have candles that smell like Thanksgiving dinner desserts?
The history of pumpkin spice and the PSL
What’s in pumpkin spice, anyway?
Let’s start the story with a breakdown of pumpkin spice which, surprisingly, doesn’t contain any pumpkin at all!
The spice blend we all love so much is made with a few simple ingredients: ground cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger and allspice.
That’s it! It’s so simple, in fact, that you could make it all on your own with a blender and a trip to your local Asian market.
But what about this seemingly simple spice blend has made the world fall in love with it as much as it has? Well, it turns out that to get to the level of fame the PSL has achieved today, a lot of blood, sweat, tears, war and travel happened in a journey that spans the entire globe!
Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?
The Spice Islands
Pumpkin spice is firmly embedded in the Fall aesthetic here in the chilly United States, but its true origins lie far from here in the warm, sunny, tropical islands of eastern Indonesia!
Just north of Australia and west of Papua New Guinea is an archipelago known as the Moluccas (or Maluku) Islands: a collection of around a thousand tiny islands sprinkled in the ocean. The islands make up two provinces of Indonesia, though the majority of the 2.1-million-strong population live on the islands of Seram, Buru, Ambon, Ternate, Tidore and Halmahera, the largest of the islands. There are smaller collections of islands like the Kai Islands, the Lucipara Islands and the Aru Islands that also account for significant portions of the population.
It’s this collection of islands that you have to thank for your annual PSL every year. Why, you ask? Because this area was once the only place in the world where certain spices like nutmeg, cloves and mace could be found, giving it the the popular name at the time, “the Spice Islands.”
The Moluccas have been inhabited for tens of thousands of years by Australo-Melanesians and Austronesians who traveled between the islands establishing cities, ports and trading routes. It was only in the 16th century that Europeans made their way to the islands as expeditions to India started heading further east, following Vasco da Gama’s establishment of the Europe-to-India sea route. Europeans were already heavily involved in the spice trade by the time the Portuguese made their way to the Moluccas in 1512, and the “discovery” of the Spice Islands’ exclusive spices made the archipelago extremely valuable to them.
As with most trade-related events of the time, the beautiful islands became the setting of a huge bidding war between the Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish and British, all of whom wanted control of the valuable resources. Eventually, the Dutch East India gained complete control of the islands in the 17th century and held a virtual monopoly over the distribution and cost of spices like cloves, nutmeg and mace. The Spice Islands continued to play a large role in the spice trade and in the European expansion, prompting Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan to set sail and complete the first circumnavigation around the world in the hope of connecting Spain to the Moluccas.
Pumpkin pie
In true colonial fashion, the Dutch East India company and other battling traders stripped the Spice Islands of their authority over their resources and brought them back to Europe, where they sold the previously unheard-of cloves, nutmeg and mace to Europeans. At the same time, pumpkins were being brought to Europe from the Americas, and so it was only a matter of time before the ingredients would find each other.
In fact, it was in Britain that we have the earliest known recipe of “pumpion pye,” which appeared in Hannah Woolley’s cookbook “The Gentlewoman’s Companion” in 1675. The recipe goes as follows:
“Take a pound of Pumpion, and slice it; an handful of Time, a little Rosemary, Sweet Marjoram stripped off the stalks, chop them small; then take Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Pepper, and a few Cloves, all beaten; also ten Eggs; and beat them all together, with as much Sugar as you shall think Sufficient; then fry them like a Froise; and being fried, let them stand till they are cold : then fill your Pye after this manner : Take Apples sliced thin round ways, and lay a layer of the Froise; and another of the Apples, with Currans betwixt the layers; be sure you put in good store of sweet Butter before you close it. When the Pye is baked, take six Yolks of Eggs, some White-wine or Verjuice, and make a Caudle thereof, but not too thick; cut up the lib and put it in, and stir them well together whilst the Eggs and Pumpions are not perceived, and so serve it up.”
Not quite like the pumpkin pie recipe you’re used to, huh?
The recipe continued to evolve over the next few centuries, and by the early 19th century a pumpkin pie with a sweet, custard-like filling began to appear at Thanksgiving dinner tables in the United States and Canada. The prevailing recipe used at the time came from a 1798 cookbook that featured two recipes for “pompkin pie” using ginger, allspice and nutmeg.
Pumpkin spice as we know it hit the shelves in 1930 when spice companies Thompson & Taylor Spice Co and McCormick & Company created pre-mixed spice blends intended for use in pumpkin pie. (Here’s an ad for the brand new spice blend, circa 1933!)
The PSL
Years and many successful pumpkin pies later, pumpkin spice gained new notoriety in the form of the pumpkin spice latte — a.k.a. the PSL.
Legend has it (and also the official Starbucks statement) that Starbucks director of espresso Peter Dukes created the formula for the PSL with his team back in 2003 after round after round of rigorous testing. Their tests included sipping espresso alongside spoonfuls of pumpkin pie and trying to figure out which flavors worked well together. Add a dash of cream here, a splash of espresso there, a swirl of whipped cream and cinnamon on top and voila! The PSL was born.
In fact, it just celebrated its 20th birthday this year!
Pumpkin spice today
Pumpkin spice has a solid place in the hearts and minds of many people today. It’s a cultural icon that marks the beginning of a new season, and pumpkin spice flavors everything from candles to cookies to potpourri to soaps, drinks, liqueurs and more!
However you enjoy your pumpkin spice, take a minute to think about the gorgeous islands that were once the only place in the world to find the spices we so love, and also about the peoples who have spent almost 40,000 years living alongside the plants that sustained their cultures.
Pumpkin spice is so much more than a latte or a pie — it represents thousands of years of history and will hopefully continue to do so for years to come!
Enjoy!
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Featured photo courtesy Pixabay/JillWellington
Colleen Ford is a South African who now lives on Oahu in Hawai'i. She loves to travel, camp, spearfish and hike. She's also part of a super cool canoe club and is pretty decent at it. Colleen enjoys Star Wars and also not being cold ever.
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