Notes from a Food Diva: The Pleasures of Pie

Although I don't have any statistics, I believe that more pies are baked at Thanksgiving than during any other time of the year. It's traditional to bring something to accompany the bird to the Thanksgiving feast - and pies are often it.

There are so many perfect pies from which to choose: apple pie - double crust or open-faced - or crumb topped, tart or turnovers, pumpkin or sweet potato and, of course, pumpkin chiffon with chopped peanuts, hazel or walnuts. Then there's cranberry, pecan or mincemeat. In fact, a small wedge of pumpkin and a small wedge of mince were often served side-by-side.

In colonial days, the custard pie was a favorite. And at Good Housekeeping, we spent a great deal of time perfecting the slipped custard pie by baking the open crust in one pie plate and the custard in another before slipping the custard into the crisp crust.

Mother was dessert maker and pie baker in our family. Her pastry was always light and flaky. Her apple pies were heaped high before baking with hills and valleys afterwards, which is still my standard for great homemade apple pie.

Her one and only cookbook, “Gold-Medal,” was a bit spotted when it came to the pie section. I can still see her cutting the lard and some butter into the flour to the size of peas with two knives before forking in ice-cold water bit by bit. And Mother would make a double batch, wrap it half in waxed paper and store it in the refrigerator. For the next pie, the dough had to stand at room temperature until it was rollable.

When the round of rolled-out pastry was fitted into the plate and the edge turned under, she used a fork around the edge for a crinkled look. For a two-crust pie, egg yolk was beaten with a fork in a teacup and the top crust dabbed here and there with a pastry brush.

Probably the best part of baking a pie at mother’s side was the finale, which was inexplicably known as “Flops.” She’d take the trimmings, patch two or three together, give them a pat or two with the rolling pin and sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar. Munched on hot and crisp from the oven, they were “sugar and spice and everything nice.”

When they were first married, mother and dad had a dog. One day Mother baked a custard pie and put it in the basement to cool. The Airedale was down there as well, so that was the end of the pie.

Another pie had a problem - and I was it. One day, my mother left a luscious lemon meringue pie sitting on the kitchen table. No one was home and I was hungry with not a snack to be found. So, I snatched a bit of the meringue and left a dime-sized indent. Then to hide the crime, I filled it with salt. Stupid. I should've used sugar.

She made a lot of meringue pies. Her summertime peach meringue pie made with sliced fresh peaches, minute tapioca and a bit of almond extract was my very favorite.

A marble slab was once considered ideal for rolling out pastry. Next to this was placed a clean hard wood board covered with tin that was never to be used for anything else. I still have the rolling pin, a hefty wooden one that was about three inches in diameter. But not the board. I used it for a school project when we were studying Greece in a history class at P.S. 79 in Whitestone. I fashioned a Greek amphitheater out of clay on mother’s pie board. It was perfect. The trouble is it never came back home with me.

Aunt Frieda owned a Tudor house next door to us with a baby grand piano and often played the spritely “Wedding of the Painted Dolls” for me. She was a fine music teacher, but was frustrated when it came to piecrust, which is strange because her father owned a bakery. In fact, I have one of the chestnut wood pie cabinets with shelves, three inches apart, that we’ve revamped for holding the brown Fair Winds dinnerware at my country place.

Aunt Frieda had difficulty rolling out the dough. She tried every kind of rolling pin imaginable - fat ones thin ones, metal, glass, pottery and one you filled with ice water. But she never was very happy with the results. She was the one, however, that taught me how to do my first fluted edge.

At Good Housekeeping, we started producing 15 to 20-page food sections on a single subject, beginning with pies, a favorite dessert item at the time. These sections were then reprinted as pamphlets and sent to readers on request, free of charge, including postage.

The timing was right: the pastry board cover and the stockinette for the rolling pin had just been introduced and that made baking a pie much easier and, with less flour, tenderer. We featured making the dough a new way - Crisco had perfected the method of using hydrogenated shortening, making a paste of flour and water and stirring that into the shortening cut into the flour.

The top of a pie was considered. Everyone knows to brush the crust of a double crust pie with a bit of egg yolk to get a good deep browning or with cream or milk for a softer brown. Lattice top making and varying it by twisting or weaving was detailed. Small cookie cutouts keyed to the season around the edge were illustrated. Children love to help with this one, if only to cut out penny sized pieces of dough and overlap them around the pie’s edge.

When Craig, my 6-foot-2-inch son was growing up, I bought a package of piecrust mix and suggested it would be fun for him to make a pie with the babysitter. When I came home from the office, there it was – lovely, and her very first. I decided that since she was studying to be a kindergarten teacher versed in arts and crafts, she had the manual dexterity.

When Brian, my first son, was a cub scout, I was always put in charge of the February Father-Son Dinner at Zion Episcopal Church, where the troop met. If I asked the mothers for brownies, everyone happily obliged with homemade. If I asked for an apple pie, they sheepishly bought one.

At the Great Neck Adult Program, I scheduled “Kids Cook French,” a class for the parent/grandparent and child. I couldn’t find an instructor, so I decided to teach it. After all, I was food editor of Parents Magazine. Rolled out piecrust was on the market and we used it for making quiche. The finished pie shells were brought up front to be exhibited. I was impressed. Each one was better than the next. They had attacked it without inhibition as an arts and crafts project.

Are you in the mood for baking a pie? I hope so. If not, here are some ways to personalize a bought one.

Perk-Me-Ups for the Bakery Pie

Pumpkin: Bring the whole pie to the table - set two or three on a tray, if they’re small. Heap a modest amount of whipped cream center top, sprinkle with chopped toasted pecans, a bit of nutmeg and a drizzle of caramel sauce. Or be chaste and scatter snipped crystallized ginger or candied orange rind on top. Or toasted coconut.

Apple or Pear, or Apple and Pear: Butter pecan ice cream. Or cheese. But be adventurous and make it small balls of Roquefort.

Mince: A wedge of cheddar cheese to pass at the table. A bit of rum or brandy spooned into the slit center top. Or pass a pitcher of eggnog with rum or brandy added.

Pecan: A small bunch of grapes beside each piece to cut the sweetness. Or, go all out and top it with vanilla ice cream.

Cranberry: A walnut in shell, cracked and set on a fall leaf beside each piece.