It’s that time of year again. From Pumpkin Spice Lattes to sweet potato pie, everything is flavored with the iconic Pumpkin Pie Spice blend. Mixing up to nine spices, most blends contain nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, allspice and cloves.

By the 1300s, traders traveled to the Banda Islands—which were among the so-called “Spice Islands”—because they were the only place nutmeg was known to grow. “At one point in the 1300s, when tariffs were at their highest, a pound of nutmeg in Europe cost seven fattened oxen and was a more valuable commodity than gold,” wrote the late John Munro, an economics professor emeritus at the University of Toronto.

A desire for spice is part of what drove European seafaring and eventual contact with the Americas. In fact, the Dutch were so hungry for nutmeg that in the late 1600s they traded their colony of New Amsterdam to Britain in exchange for Pulau Run, a nutmeg-producing Banda Island over which Britain claimed control. The British renamed the colony “New York.”  Pulau Run remained part of the Netherlands’ colonies until the mid-20th century, when it became part of the new, independent nation of Indonesia.

In 18th century America, spices were available and being used in cooking and baking. A newspaper recipe for “soft cakes” from 1825 New York confirms that spices (nutmeg and cinnamon in this case) were used in early American baking. But when did this traditional spice combination become known as “pumpkin spice”?

In 1930, a spice company called Thompson & Taylor (T&T) from Chicago introduced what they called “Pumpkin Pie Spice,” which combined all the spices a home baker needed to make pumpkin pie. Now, as the ads claimed, making pumpkin pies at home was more convenient and the pies themselves would be more consistent in flavor.

The idea of selling a pre-mixed pie spice caught on, and over the next few years more and more companies introduced their own pumpkin pie spices. The mix best-known today, by McCormick, went on the market in 1934.

With pre-mixed pie spices now readily available and convenient, it was easy for creative home cooks in the 1930s and beyond to add it to other foods, from soufflés to cookies to gingerbread. McCormick even briefly marketed a “Pumpkin Pie & Ginger Bread Spice” in the mid-1930s.

Around this same time, “pumpkin spice” began appearing in the names of recipes published in newspapers. For instance, based on the papers currently on Newspapers.com, recipes for “Pumpkin Spice Cake” began showing up in newspapers around 1935. From this time on, ads and recipes for “pumpkin spice” flavored foods appeared with increasing frequency in newspapers, and it became well-established as its own flavor in the decades that followed.

But, of course, despite pumpkin spice’s long history, the current flood of pumpkin-spice products can largely be traced back to Starbucks, which first introduced its popular Pumpkin Spice Latte in 2003. Spiced coffee has its own extensive history, but Starbucks’ branding of its new beverage as “pumpkin spice” kicked off a trend that seems to have taken over the autumn season. Whether you like it or not.

This holiday season, we are grateful for another busy year at the Museum serving our community. We hear the words “Pumpkin Pie Spice”, and it brings memories of home and family gatherings (and great pies!) At the Museum, we strive to create an experience of place and belonging for our residents and visitors alike with stories about our ancestors and a way of life in a special place.