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By Jackie Burrell
Contra Costa Times

Forget the pumpkin. Thanksgiving, says New Orleans native Michael LeBlanc, is all about sweet potato pie.

"I think there's a cultural difference between Southern and Northern folks," says the owner of Pican, Oakland's swanky Southern-style restaurant. "The first time I heard of pumpkin pie, I was 24 or 25. Pumpkin was for Halloween and you had to buy them at the store."

But sweet potato pie is a whole other thing — silky, rich and soul satisfying. It reigns supreme on the Thanksgiving dessert buffet in Southern and African-American homes everywhere, including the Bay Area.

Good luck finding a written recipe, though. It's one of those dishes that every Southerner or soul food devotee knows how to make, but no one bothers to write down.

"I called two of my aunts for a recipe," LeBlanc says, "and one listed out five or six items, two eggs, a stick of butter, nutmeg, vanilla, some other stuff.

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