The Plants in Pumpkin Spice
Emily Ellis
Fall is here, and so is everything pumpkin spice. While Oak Spring is a bit too secluded for staff members and residents to easily run to the nearest coffee shop for a sugary afternoon pick-me-up, it wouldn’t feel like fall without apples dropping from the trees, leaves turning to gold, and pumpkin spice flavoring every autumn treat imaginable, including the iconic pumpkin spice latte.
If you’ve ever wondered what makes a PSL such a perfect sensory representation of autumn, the answer is a wide variety of plants. “Pumpkin spice” contains a range of fascinating flora with scents and flavors that we associate with changing leaves and cozy sweaters - except, in most cases, for its namesake squash. Scroll down for a botanical breakdown of fall’s quintessential drink.
Pumpkin
Do you claim to love mildly sweet, creamy pumpkin puree? Unless you’re stewing the flesh of a round orange fruit plucked straight from your own patch or local farmer’s market, chances are you actually love butternut or Dickinson squash.
Poor pumpkins have been misrepresented by generations of home cooks, restaurants, and businesses, and it’s all the fault of the government. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has always been a little vague on what ingredients qualify as pumpkin, which has led to a bit of confusion when it comes to popular fall treats like the pumpkin spice latte.
A cinderella pumpkin at the BCCF. Photo by Caitlin Etherton
About ten years ago, food blogger Vani Hari caused a minor scandal in the chain coffee shop world when she pointed out that there was no actual fruit or vegetable matter in the massively popular Starbucks PSL. In 2015, Starbucks and other chains capitulated and plopped a bit of “pumpkin puree” into the drink, but it still probably doesn’t contain much of what most of us would call pumpkin. The FDA defines pumpkin as any mixture of “firm-shelled, golden-fleshed, sweet squash,” which is technically true: pumpkins, squash and gourds are members of the Cucurbitaceae family, which contains more than 100 genera and over 700 species. Most edible, hard winter squashes fall into the cucurbita argyrosperma, maxima, moschata, and pepo genera. We label some of these fruits as pumpkins because of their appearance, not because of any significant botanical differences between them.
Major canned “pumpkin” companies such as Libby’s add to this confusion by primarily using the Dickinson squash (a close relative of the butternut), which has a creamy texture and strong flavor profile, in their products, so there’s a good chance you’re not actually eating the round orange fruit pictured on the label. (Why we haven’t all been preparing “Squash Spice” fall treats for years is anyone’s guess.)
That’s not to say that what most of us consider pumpkins aren’t perfectly tasty themselves. Pumpkins have been grown in North America for thousands of years, and are packed with Vitamin A and other nutrients. Oak Spring’s Biocultural Conservation Farm grows a variety of heirloom pumpkins, including the Seminole, Cinderella, and Winter Luxury Pie varieties, along with South Anna Butternut and Candy Roaster squashes. No matter what you call them, they’re all autumnal and delicious - and would be a great addition to a homemade PSL.
Ginger
This baby ginger from the BCCF’s greenhouse looks far different from what you get at the grocery store, as it hasn’t grown a tough outer skin yet. Photo compliments of the BCCF.
While some homemade or artisanal PSL recipes contain dried or fresh ginger root - a plant with amazing health properties - chances are there isn’t much of this actual plant in the average pumpkin spice treat. Most commercial pumpkin spice mixes use zingiberene - a molecule found in oil of ginger, along with other plant species including tomato, basil, and turmeric - to emulate that warm, spicy flavor. Although zingiberene doesn’t have the benefits of actual ginger, using the compound in commercial spice mixes is probably for the best from a sustainability perspective: it would be environmentally damaging for ginger-growers in India and China to harvest enough root to support the massive seasonal demand for pumpkin spice sweets.
If you’d like to make your own ground spice from actual ginger roots, which is guaranteed to give your fall recipes an extra kick and will ensure you get more of the plant’s nutritional benefits, the process is pretty simple (The Spruce Eats provides some handy instructions here).
Cinnamon
A Cinnamomum zeylanicum tree. Photo by Afifa Afrin.
Much like ginger and pumpkin, humans have been using cinnamon for culinary and medicinal purposes long before Starbucks came onto the scene. The spice comes from the inner layer of bark taken from evergreen trees that belong to the genus Cinnamomum, which is why it curls into “quills” when dried. While any spice made from trees in this family is technically considered cinnamon, most of the cinnamon you find in the store comes from Cinnamomum cassia, a tree native to China that is widely cultivated throughout Southeast Asia. Processed foods likely contain more Cinnamaldehyde - a naturally-occurring compound found in cinnamon - than actual powdered tree bark.
Allspice
“Carolina allspice” from A Complete Body of Planting and Gardening by W. Habury (1770).
Contrary to its name, allspice isn’t a blend of, well, all spices. It is actually the dried unripe berry of the Pimenta dioica or Jamaican Pepper tree, a type of broadleaf evergreen native to the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America. Like the other warming spices on this list, allspice has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Again, in most processed foods like the PSL you’re more likely to find a compound that mimics the flavor of allspice rather than the berry itself: in this case, Eugenol, an extract derived from the essential oils of clove and basil.
Nutmeg
Myristica Fragrant fruits. Photo by Ji-Elle.
Like cinnamon and allspice, nutmeg also comes from a type of evergreen tree. Myristica fragrant is native to Indonesia and is the source of both nutmeg (the inner seed you can buy in little bottles at the grocery store), and mace, which comes from the seed’s outer casing (no relation to the defensive spray). The “nutmeg” you find in PSLs and other pumpkin spice products, however, comes from chemicals that don’t contain much of the original plant. Sabinene, a compound used to to mimic nutmeg’s peppery flavor, is isolated primarily from the oils of the holm oak and the Norway spruce.
Fresh cloves. Photo by Amone Heijne.
Clove
Have you ever punched cloves into an orange or apple as a fall crafting project? Cloves are the dried, unopened flower buds of the evergreen Syzgium aromaticum, which is native to Indonesia and is widely grown and exported in that country, Zanzibar, and Madagascar. Eugenol, which comes from cloves themselves as well as basil and other plants, is used to mimic their flavor in processed pumpkin spice blends. Like ginger, cinammon, nutmeg and allspice, cloves also have a plethora of antioxidants and other nutrients and have long been used in traditional medicine.
Candy roaster squash grown at the BCCF. Photo by Christine Harris.
While we’re sorry to report that the PSL - while delicious - doesn’t contain much actual plant manner, homemade versions are just as tasty, and have more of the health and immune-boosting benefits of winter squash and warming spices (alongside a hefty serving of fat and sugar). BCCF farmer and chef Saskia Poulos likes this all-natural pumpkin spice latte recipe from Bon Appetit, which contains fresh ginger and an entire cup of pumpkin puree. She recommends sweet, rich candy roaster squash, which has a long history in the Appalachian region, as a great substitute for the pumpkin in this drink. Cheers, happy fall!