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Today on Weird History Food, we're scooping out the history of pumpkin spice
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Native Americans were cultivating pumpkins as early as 3500 BC, making it one of the oldest known farmed crops in the Western Hemisphere
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As time wore on, and previously rare spices were increasingly cultivated in new locations across
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the globe, their value dropped, and they became affordable for the average person
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which encouraged people to experiment. Amelia Simmons' 1796 cookbook, American Cookery, features the first ever recipes for spiced pumpkin pie
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In one of these pumpkin pie recipes, she suggests mixing pumpkin with ginger and nutmeg
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In another, she suggests using ginger and allspice. It didn't take long for bakers across America
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to take up Simmons' recipes and make them their own. And by the end of the following century
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many cookbooks began referring to the combination of nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, and clove
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simply as pumpkin pie spice. Still, it wasn't until a half century later
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in 1934 that McCormick and company released the first ever pre-mixed version of pumpkin pie spice
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The world would never be the same. While pumpkin pie spice lived out the next 70 years as a useful addition to any holiday dessert
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it wasn't until 2003 that a handful of mad scientists gave it a life all its own
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Legend has it that a small group met in the ultra Liquid Lab located on the seventh floor of Starbucks headquarters On one fateful day the team brought actual pumpkin pies into the lab
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and drenched them in loads of espresso. The team dropped all other ideas
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to focus on creating the perfect pumpkin pie-inspired beverage. To do so, they developed a sauce
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that could be mixed into Starbucks' existing lattes, and they topped it off with whipped cream
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and all of the standard pumpkin pie spice ingredients. Years later, the recipe would also come to include actual pumpkin puree, presumably to thwart pedantic trivia nerds
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Yes, we know there's no pumpkin in pumpkin spice. And when it hit limited stores in October of 2003, it was an immediate success
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In the two decades since its initial release, Starbucks has sold over 200 million pumpkin spice drinks
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As other companies saw Starbucks' success, nearly everyone has tried to cash in on the pumpkin spice craze that swept the nation
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Among the more popular products are pre-made desserts and dessert mixes, including pumpkin spice Oreos, Hostess's Iced Pumpkin Cupcakes, and Pumpkin Spice Cookie Dough
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Dunkin', Coffee Mate, and International Delight all also have their very own pumpkin spiced flavor coffee creamers
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You can pair your pumpkin spice coffee with pumpkin spice Cheerios or Frosted Mini Wheats
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or even indulge in a whopping spoonful of Philadelphia's pumpkin spice cream cheese spread
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regardless of what any haters may think. The reason you see pumpkin spice everywhere
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is because most of us love it. The United States alone spends over a half a billion dollars
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every year on pumpkin spice flavored products
