Old-School Fall Dishes People Hardly Eat Anymore

Pie flavors like sweet potato and pumpkin are all the rage, but squash pie? A lot of us have probably never even tried one. Certain squash varieties like butternut and acorn are not wildly different from pumpkin — a fruit (not vegetable) which is also in the gourd family. However, squash pie hasn't made many appearances on autumnal dessert tables as of late. But back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, recipes for squash pie were commonly published in cookbooks. For many, it was passed down as a family recipe.

Today, squash pie is still thought of as a family recipe, albeit one that is usually published with the word "Grandma" somewhere in the title. Some old-school recipes call for acorn squash, yellow squash, or winter squash, while others don't specify. Much like a classic pumpkin pie recipe, cinnamon and nutmeg are the go-to spices, but ginger, molasses, sweetened condensed milk, or lemon extract are welcome touches. Some say squash pie has a denser texture than pumpkin pie; others say pumpkin pies are just squash pies in disguise.

Canned pumpkin pie mix has been called out for being primarily squash, but since the FDA doesn't differentiate between the two, a mislabeling recall is not in order. Instead, bakers taking the canned pumpkin pie filling route may very well be feasting on squash pie unknowingly. Which begs the question: Is squash pie as out of style as we think?

Modern day supermarkets are full of protein bars, but not ones made from rendered fat and buffalo meat. Pemmican, a pressed bar of wild game and animal fat, is a centuries-old wilderness snack. In North America, Indigenous people made pemmican in preparation for the cold weather months, when food was likely to be scarce. Pemmican was portable by design and gave those who trekked the land quick and easy sustenance. Now, on-the-go snacks are just a grocery run away, and pemmican's status as the O.G. power bar is a distant memory.

Pemmican was popular with Northern Indigenous communities, such as the Sioux, and was a preferred food amongst fur traders. Dried bison meat was the most common protein used. It was broken into small pieces and combined with cooked fat and bone marrow (dried berries were considered a luxurious addition). The mixture was poured into bags made from the animal's hide. These bags, some of which could hold 100 pounds of pemmican, were sewn shut while the mixture set. The first published accounts of pemmican preparation came from William Clark, who documented the Lewis and Clark expedition of the American West.

Although pemmican was largely thought of as a survival food, it was also used to flavor vegetable stews. The Métis, who descended from French colonists and their Indigenous Canadian wives, held semi-annual hunts in the spring and fall which yielded millions of pounds of pemmican.

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In decades past, it was common for creamed corn to get dressed up in an elegant serving dish and be part of a Thanksgiving Day spread. That doesn't happen as much anymore. A general disinterest in creamed corn may be partly due to people's perception of this old-school dish, because the 20th century convenience of canned cream corn overshadowed the dish that inspired it. Canned cream corn isn't all that creamy — a "meh" rendition of the real thing — but for many people, it's the only version they've tried.

Corn has been grown in the Americas for thousands of years. It was first cultivated by Indigenous communities, and later, by European settlers who learned about regional crops from the natives. In the northern U.S., Indigenous communities honored the fall harvest of corn with ceremonial thanksgiving celebrations. Indigenous people found countless uses for corn and cooked it in many different ways. One method involved separating the corn kernels from their cobs, then scraping the cobs' sides with a straight edge to release the corn milk. Cooking the kernels in the corn milk became known as creamed corn.

The recipe was popular in the Midwest and the South, and over time, the creamed corn recipe changed. Adding cream, bacon fat, or fresh herbs was common. Other recipes stuck to the dish's roots and utilized starchy corn milk instead of a dairy element, allowing for more depth of flavor and just the right amount of sweetness.

Tomato paste and Wonder Bread are the leading ingredients of tomato pudding, which are a major indication that this is a fall dish from an era gone by. The tangy side dish had a presence in the early 20th century, and to Americans, was more of a casserole than a pudding. In the Midwest, tomato pudding is a no-frills, holiday comfort food — basically a festive guilty pleasure. In the 21st century, not many people are familiar with tomato pudding.

Cubes of bread are placed in a baking dish and doused in a mixture of a heated mixture of tomato paste, water, brown sugar, butter, and salt. In case you've started thinking that tomato pudding is just a homespun recipe that could never be commercialized, consider the fact that it already has. Tomato pudding was a signature recipe of a tavern-turned-hostel in Waterville, Ohio called the Columbian House.

By the early 20th century, the Columbian House, which was built in 1828, had become a relic of the community that changed hands many times and was considered haunted. Henry Ford hosted a Halloween party there in 1927, and it was there that the then-owner Ethel Arnold served Ford her signature tomato pudding. Ford was enamoured and wanted to buy the recipe, but it would be years before Arnold would share her secret tomato pudding process.

For the mid-20th century home entertainer, a recipe for quirky 1950s hors d'oeuvres was always welcome. This was especially true when it came to preparing food for holiday get-togethers. Halloween celebrations are a hallmark of the fall season, and back in the day, funky offerings like goblin sandwiches were no stranger to a party tray. The recipe for goblin sandwiches — a handheld with a little extra bite — was notable enough to be put in print, but it's not something most of us have encountered in the new millennium.

The first giveaway that goblin sandwiches are from a bygone era is the ingredients list. In a time where mayonnaise coated bananas and Jello coated everything, the components of a goblin sandwich read like just a day in the life. According to the pamphlet-style cookbook "How To Run a 1946 Halloween Party" published by the Doughnut Corporation of America, goblin sandwiches contain a mixture of deviled ham, Brazil nuts, avocado, and Worcestershire sauce. Instead of housing the concoction between bread, sliced cake donuts are used.

A 1936 Australian recipe for goblin sandwiches approaches the construction differently. One slice of white bread and one slice of brown are used in each sandwich. The slices are buttered and one is slathered with cheese spread. Shredded ham is sandwiched between the slices. The top slice is garnished with stuffed olives for the eyes and nose, a lengthwise-cut of pickle forms the mouth, and two upturned pickle slivers make the goblin's eyebrows.

In the 1950s and '60s, the suburban housewife's kitchen was not complete without a Jello mold or two. A mold was the gateway to endless culinary possibilities, including cranberry souffle salad, a festive fall dish that has not stood the test of time. Back then, canned and pre-packaged foods were on the rise and their novelty was a commercial force. In order to optimize these ready-made ingredients, recipes like cranberry souffle salad — which promotes the normalcy of filling a Jello mold with canned whole cranberry sauce, gelatin, and mayonnaise — were being put to print.

Cranberry souffle salad was championed for its versatility. As a side dish, it was a perfect companion to a meat dinner (cranberry sauce and turkey are still a match made in autumnal heaven). The 1950s was also a time when food brands kicked self-promotion into high gear by including recipe ideas on product labels or in print ads. One published recipe for cranberry souffle salad from 1958 specifically calls for Hellmann's Real Mayonnaise and Knox Gelatine.

These styles of salad are hardly made anymore. Canned cranberry sauce remains an autumn staple and Hellmann's mayo is still going strong. The two joining forces to become cranberry souffle salad, however, is an idea that's firmly rooted in the past.

Acorns being made into mush isn't bound to be a pretty plate of food, but what it does have is a lot of historical significance as a fall dish. For centuries, Native Americans have been known as expert hunters and gatherers. Acorns gathered from oak trees supplied Indigenous communities with several foods, including an old-fashioned fall dish called acorn mush. It's still possible to find recipes for traditional acorn mush, but this starchy porridge isn't something most modern palates are accustomed to.

Ground acorn meal and water are the only ingredients needed to prepare acorn mush. Traditionally, the mush is cooked in a woven basket over hot rocks. To make acorn meals, Indigenous people used a flour sifter. Both the cooking basket and flour sifter were meticulously crafted from sticks, roots, and grass. Water was poured through the basket sifter multiple times to leach the tannins from the ground acorns — time-consuming, but a key step for safe acorns without any bitterness.

Gathering ripe acorns was a practice that took place every fall, especially in California, where acorn recipes are a near-forgotten state food. Handwoven baskets weren't the only tools needed to make acorn mush. An acorn mush paddle was also essential for the cook. These wooden paddles, usually made from oak or maple, were used to move the acorn meal around as it cooked in the basket so it didn't burn.

In America, sweet potatoes are closely associated with fall dishes, yet this vibrant root vegetable has time-honored seasonal significance in Eastern cultures as well. In China, sweet potatoes are lauded for their health benefits and the ease in which they can be incorporated into many different recipes. One old-style Chinese dish with an autumnal flair is sweet potato congee, or xiaomi hongshu zhou. Congee is a type of rice porridge eaten throughout Asia, often during cold weather months. Like sweet potato, congee is reputed as a restorative, comforting dish. Congee is still hugely relevant, but xiaomi hongshu zhou, specifically, never went mainstream.

Xiaomi hongshu zhou blends sweet potato with millet, an ancient Chinese grain that is thought to predate rice. This simple sweet potato congee has roots in northern China and is often made with dried dates, nuts, or herbs. Due to xiaomi hongshu zhou's soothing nature, it was often fed to children, the elderly, or people who were under the weather. It was also regarded as a simple, rural type of dish, and wasn't something that was adopted by restaurant culture. Old-fashioned xiaomi hongshu zhou may not have international popularity, yet it retains a deeper significance that is timeless in and of itself.

We don't talk about parsnips enough. Parsnips are a root vegetable that looks like a white carrot, and is at peak season in fall and winter. The sweet yet hearty veggie is a great addition to soups and stews in the cold weather months, but they're also tasty on their own. Parsnip patties are a classic example of parsnips' ability to be the star of a dish.  But unfortunately, the sweet, earthy patties aren't made all that often.

Parsnip patties, or parsnip cakes, have been around for hundreds of years. Some of the earliest documentation of parsnip patty recipes were recorded in 18th century British cookbooks. In America, parsnip patties were a popular food during World War II, when humble yet filling dishes kept families fed during national food rations.

Parsnip patties were often cooked on a griddle, giving them a similar look and texture to potato latkes. Like potatoes, parsnips also require boiling in order to soften before being mashed. As a traditionally modest food, parsnip patties don't require much in the way of supplemental ingredients. Flour, salt, and pepper are added to the parsnip mash before being hand-formed into patties and baked in an oven or heated on a stovetop. 

For decades, Campbell's Soup Company commanded a huge influence over how people approached dinner recipes. Campbell's soup has been a pantry staple for over 100 years, and the company hasn't been shy about dishing out recipe suggestions. One of Campbell's old-school recipes was autumn pork chops, a smothered meat dish that sought to embrace the season. It's not a recipe that people remember well.

Campbell's created the autumn pork chops recipe in the name of old-fashioned, hearty home-cooking. The ingredients list is humble: oil, Campbell's Cream of Celery Soup, apple juice (or water), spicy brown mustard, and egg noodles. For a lot of Americans who came of age in the 20th century, recipes for egg noodles and meat tossed in a little sauce were the epitome of comfort food.

Perhaps the slight nod to apples (in the form of juice) was Campbell's way of designating autumn pork chops as a fall recipe. Modernized versions of autumn pork chops don't tend to include egg noodles, apple juice, or Campbell's soup. Elevated autumn pork chop recipes incorporate actual apple or fruit compote, and the egg noodles get swapped out for mashed potatoes and vegetables.

We're all well acquainted with oatmeal cookies, but oatmeal pie? This fall dish of yesteryear is not something that's encountered much these days — to the point that a lot of people don't even know it existed at all. Oats are one of those backbone ingredients that bind other ingredients together, which makes it seem more suitable as a crust stabilizer than the starring flavor for a pie. Old-school recipes prove otherwise.

Historic oats brand Quaker has an old-fashioned oatmeal pie recipe that combines its oats with dark corn syrup, sugar, and shredded coconut — which sounds pretty delicious. Oatmeal pie got its start in the Civil War era. In the South, pecans were hard to come by during wartime, so making pecan pie was no longer possible. Pie bakers of the 1860s would not be deterred by this setback. Soon it was discovered that using oats in place of pecans produced a pie with a similar texture. Oatmeal pie is sometimes referred to as mock pecan pie for this reason. Serving the pie at Thanksgiving was a tradition of past generations.

Oysters are tasty, but they're by no means the cutest food you've ever seen. Combine their slightly slug-like appearance with a strong sea water taste, and voilà – you've got a stuffing ingredient that people either embrace or shun. Oyster stuffing, or dressing, is an old-school New England thing, and not a fall dish that everyone understands. Since the dish is viewed by some as an oddity, it entered niche territory. 

In centuries past, there were so many oysters on East coast shores it was impossible to overlook them. Oysters were folded into stuffings for poultry and fish or eaten on their own. Early fall also marks the start of oyster season. At one time, it was advised to only eat oysters during months with the letter "r" in the name — September through April — to avoid the red tides of summer from contaminating oysters with toxic algae. In modern times, oyster farmers know to cease production if these harmful algal blooms occur.

Over the years, oyster stuffing was served as a side dish rather than a stuffing for birds. Traditional recipes don't deviate much from a basic Thanksgiving stuffing of breadcrumbs, egg, butter, celery, onion, and herbs. The Cajun version adds andouille sausage and peppers. But hardly any styles of oyster stuffing are eaten anymore.