Sweet Potato Pie vs. Pumpkin Pie: There's One Clear Winner...

As our biggest food holiday approaches, we’re taking on the age old dessert debate.

Every year, Thanksgiving brings us food debates as old as time. Is it called stuffing or dressing? Do you serve cranberry sauce or jelly? Most importantly, do you have sweet potato pie or pumpkin?

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Chef Tanya Holland's Thanksgiving Tradition Plus Her Kitchen Dos and Don'ts

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Chef Tanya Holland's Thanksgiving Tradition Plus Her Cooking Dos and Don'ts

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Inside Wiz Khalifa’s ‘Normal’ Mansion, Can You Believe Snoop Dogg's Never Lived Inside This Home? Peek Into Halle Berry's Beachfront Estate, Jimmy Butler For Sure Has the Best NBA Mansion Ever, Diddy's Raided Home Gets Put Up For Sale, Drake's $100 Million Toronto Home and More Celeb homes
Black Athletes Whose Children Followed in Their Footsteps
Chef Tanya Holland's Thanksgiving Tradition Plus Her Kitchen Dos and Don'ts

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Chef Tanya Holland's Thanksgiving Tradition Plus Her Cooking Dos and Don'ts

For Black folks this may seem like an easy answer, but it’s actually not that simple. There are quite a few people out there who prefer the traditional feeling of eating pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, for a lot of us, sweet potato pie is part of our family tradition. The recipe has been handed down for generations and making sure it’s part of the table is a way of honoring our ancestors.

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Before we start arguing about flavors and taste, let’s get into the origins of yams and why they mean so much to Black families.

According to Culture Travels, yams were one of the many foods brought to America by enslaved Africans. As they passed down the best techniques for growing yams, enslaved people were also the ones who began to call them sweet potatoes. We really do deserve more credit for how we built this country’s food culture.

Per History, pumpkin pie was a popular English treat that made the trip to America with early colonists. Surprisingly, pumpkin pie became a central piece of abolitionist literature, which made it and Thanksgiving despised in the south. Of course, that didn’t last, as both became essential traditions after the Civil War.

While we doubt most Black people know the historical details behind pumpkin pie, we do know that sweet potato pie feels like it’s part of our history. It ties us to our ancestors and makes sure their presence is represented at our table.

And let’s be honest — sweet potato pie just tastes better than pumpkin pie. When it’s done right, there’s something uniquely special about the way those flavors blend together. In the dessert world, a perfectly made sweet potato pie is almost unmatched.

Pumpkin pie can occasionally taste repetitive. Even when you know someone is putting their own spin on the recipe, it still kind of resembles every other version you’ve ever had. It just doesn’t hit the same as sweet potato.

If pumpkin pie is your jam, we’re not judging, because we understand that everyone celebrates in their own individual way. However, if you’re invited to a Black family’s Thanksgiving dinner, we suggest you enjoy the sweet potato pie, compliment the chef and keep it moving.