Love it or hate it, pumpkin spice is everywhere this time of year. How did it take over?

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• William Brangham:

  While this season's politics and headlines may lead to heated exchanges over the Thanksgiving table, we thought we'd ask Paul Solman to address a different controversy and serve up something a bit different.

• Paul Solman:

  OK, there isn't pumpkin spice on that?

  Hadar Cohen Aviram, Executive Chef and Culinary Development Leader, McCormick & Company: Oh, there is.

• Paul Solman:

  A Thanksgiving feast, hold the turkey, stuffing, green beans, sweet potato casserole, a menu of just pumpkin spice, popcorn, pumpkin spice apple cider, and pie, of course.

  This is good.

  Sampling the spread at Baltimore spice haven McCormick & Company on the 90th anniversary of pumpkin pie spice.

• Hadar Cohen Aviram:

  So, you have that sweetness coming from the cinnamon. You have that peppery kick from the ginger. You have the nutmeg that brings its nuttiness, and then you have all spice that has a little bit of everything. And you also get the entire house smell like holiday.

• Paul Solman:

  McCormick chef Hadar Cohen Aviram says the blend was designed to make pies easier to cook.

• Hadar Cohen Aviram:

  This is about two teaspoons total.

• Paul Solman:

  But, nowadays, just churn the spice with butter and smear it on anything, crostini, say.

• Hadar Cohen Aviram:

  I'm going to put a slice of green apple, you can use any apple you want, one piece of prosciutto and finish it with some candied walnuts. And that's it.

• Paul Solman:

  Or infuse a pumpkin cheesecake.

• Hadar Cohen Aviram:

  Another way to maybe zhuzh things up a little bit, change things out, maybe try something new.

• Paul Solman:

  Something new, but relying on something old, pumpkin spice's nostalgic appeal,at a moment when nostalgia for America's past seems especially strong.

• Hadar Cohen Aviram:

  Aroma is really much related to our memories. Maybe it brings back that nostalgia and that warm fuzzy feeling of holiday.

• Paul Solman:

  Maybe even nostalgia for a time that's become myth, since, as you probably know, whatever mutual Thanksgiving there was at the iconic 1621 meal didn't exactly last.

  No pie there either, but:

• Joyce White, Food Historian:

  The Pilgrims were eating pumpkin from the get-go. That was what sustained them over those first few years and those winters especially, when they didn't really have much of anything else. They were eating just boiled pumpkin.

• Paul Solman:

  We met Maryland food historian Joyce White at the Hammond-Harwood House in Annapolis.

• Joyce White:

  This kitchen dates to 1774. Things like spices and sugar were still kept under lock and key by the mistress of the household, and every morning she would sort of dole out what was needed for the day's recipes.

• Paul Solman:

  And what about pumpkin pies?

• Joyce White:

  They were what Marylanders at that time were calling Yankee food. So it was not a popular dish. It was advertised as animal fodder.

• Paul Solman:

  So there was a North-South divide with regard to pumpkin pie?

• Joyce White:

  Absolutely. It wasn't until after Abraham Lincoln read his Thanksgiving proclamation after the Battle of Gettysburg in the fall of 1863 that Thanksgiving becomes a national holiday. It wasn't until much later in the 19th century, well after the Civil War, that each region of the south adopts those Yankee traditions eventually.

• Paul Solman:

  Because industrialization began to build a national market, a national economy.

• Joyce White:

  Your children are now going out to factories to work. They're not staying on the farm.

• Paul Solman:

  And thus the spread of a new national holiday.

• Joyce White:

  Having this long weekend was a way for them to essentially come home. And so the warm spices conjure up this image of the warm hearth and home.

• Paul Solman:

  So is that why or part of the reason why pumpkin spice is so popular?

• Joyce White:

  I think the allure of that nostalgic past that pumpkin pie spice conveys through Thanksgiving and through those dishes that we associate with that nostalgic past is certainly there in America today.

• Paul Solman:

  Capitalizing on that nostalgic flavor, Starbucks, which poured its first pumpkin spice latte, or PSL, 20 years ago. And hundreds of millions of PSLs later, the drink's now a seasonal essential. At caffeine haunts like Black Acres Roastery in Baltimore's historic Lexington Market, less than a mile from where McCormick first concocted pumpkin pie spice.

  Owner Travis Bell's twist on the PSL is basic and bougie, meaning:

• Travis Bell, Owner, Black Acres Roastery:

  The basics of the UGGs and the flannel shirts, but the bougie of the upscale luxury beverage that you would want to get at maybe another cafe that I won't name.

• Paul Solman:

  Oh, bougie as in bourgeois?

• Travis Bell:

  Yes.

• Paul Solman:

  Well, I'm bourgeois, for sure. Oh, that kind of does taste like pumpkin pie.

• Travis Bell:

  So we use fresh-made puree, pumpkin, and spices. We steep that all together, add some sweetness to it, and that's our house-made syrup.

• Paul Solman:

  Bell named Black Acres Roastery after the Civil War promise of a mule and 40 acres of hearth and home for the formerly enslaved.

• Travis Bell:

  And seeing what the history of that was in the plots of land in the South, black, green, yellow acres is what they were called, and so black acres just kind of stuck out to me, and so that's what I named it.

• Paul Solman:

  But the formerly enslaved did not get their 40 acres and a mule.

• Travis Bell:

  Correct.

• Paul Solman:

  You're not terribly nostalgic for the America that was.

• Travis Bell:

  No, no. I like the progression that we're making as a country, yes.

• Paul Solman:

  So, for Bell, his cafe, and even a basic and bougie, are ways to look ahead.

• Travis Bell:

  People are interested in what was and what could be, and we try to bring what that drink is to the modern age, hopefully building new memories for the people that are available now. So…

• Paul Solman:

  I'm going to keep eating.

  (Laughter)

• Hadar Cohen Aviram:

  Please.

• Paul Solman:

  Building new memories with a taste of what is comforting about the past, dessert at the Thanksgiving table.

  For the "PBS News Hour," Paul Solman, stodging in Baltimore, Maryland.