To celebrate our magnanimous country now that Thanksgiving is a week away, here’s my article for this week’s issue of Post-, the Brown Daily Herald’s literary magazine.
“It is utterly insufficient [to eat pie only twice a week], as anyone who knows the strength of our nation and the foundation of our industrial supremacy must admit. Pie is the American synonym of prosperity, and its varying contents the calendar of the changing seasons. Pie is the food of the heroic. No pie-eating people can ever be permanently vanquished.” –New York Times (May 3, 1902)
What holiday could be more American than Thanksgiving? Rooted in colonialism, family, and God, it remains a quintessential part of our country’s identity, marked by binge fests and football. Similarly, what dessert could be more American than apple pie? A cultural icon, it is the emblem of patriotism and down-home comfort.
Indeed, America has appropriated pie as its most nationalistic dish of dishes, a symbol of heroism met with humility, robustness with cozy delicacy. It’s ubiquitous during the holidays, but in the summer, you’ll find it in the form of strawberry rhubarb or key lime. And what would the Fourth of July be without good old cherry pie?
There is something so viscerally, universally appealing about pie, as darling as a cake but nowhere near as fussy. Pastry and filling were destined for each other like Barbie and Ken: together, they are the image of domesticity, yet infinitely versatile. On any given minute of the day, there is some breed of pie out there begging to be consumed.
Breakfast. Bam. Start the day off right with a simple tart filled with fresh fruit. Berries, pears, peaches, citrus–pick your poison. Best if you pile ‘em over pastry cream, if you can swing it.
At lunchtime, quiche reigns supreme. What the French have done here is answer to the American pie in a trickier, more ethereal fashion. Still, a rose by any other name… yadda yadda. Smoked ham and Brie or mushrooms and leeks are redolent of eating al fresco on Parisian sidewalks. If you, a pie purist, insist on omitting the eggy filling, a noble alternative can be found in a tart of roasted squash and Gorgonzola. Go wild.
Dinner calls for something more substantial, and so the stage is set for chicken pot pie. With its bubbling interior of gravy beneath a halo of crust, it is the textbook example of comfort food, a perfect antidote to these damp gray days with their cruelly evanescent sunlight. Later in the night, pizza is the only option, at least as pies go–as they say in Wedding Crashers, it’s good no matter what.
Dessert, though, is the arena in which pie can really shine at its Platonic ideal. During Thanksgiving, certain dishes start to seem repulsive as more of them are heaped onto the table. I can tolerate two casseroles. I cannot tolerate seven of them. With pies, though, there is no diminishing marginal value. Keep them coming, and everyone will stay happy.
I am a strong supporter of pecan pie; the pecans, gem-like, precipitate bursts of buttery expression amidst the molasses alluvium. Another contender is sweet potato pie, which is further glorified with a gingersnap-pecan crust. Gild the lily that is pumpkin pie by folding caramel into the filling. Chilled pies needn’t be ruled out; as a Southerner, I’m partial to the lemon icebox pie, a wonder of tangy golden custard atop coarse graham cracker crust. It tastes like wearing a sundress on a wrap-around porch. While you may call that inappropriate for Thanksgiving, I call it timely. This is an under-publicized cure for Seasonal Affective Disorder.
So the New York Times editorial, however hyperbolic, makes a good point. Pie, in its manifold manifestations, is a cornerstone of American culinary tradition. Rustic or highbrow, sweet or savory, it always manages to satisfy–what better cause exists for giving thanks? Should you need to satisfy a pie fix wherever you find yourself next week, here’s my pick. I’ve heard it’ll earn you the eternal adulation of whoever eats it, but you may want to just hoard it in your room. Leave the apple pie to everyone else.
Ali’s Amazing Pecan Pie
It should speak volumes that I still get warm fuzzies thinking about spending the holidays with an ex-boyfriend, an abnormality I accredit largely to this pie, a brainchild of my ex’s mom. It’s so beloved that she has to make several every Thanksgiving in order to satisfy the appetites of her throng of hungry sons. The secret is the dark corn syrup and brown sugar, which meld in a torrid, oven-bound affair to create just about the most celestial smell I could ever dream up.
Ingredients:
1 cup dark corn syrup
1 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1.5 cups chopped pecans (reserve 1/4 cup)
One pie crust, unbaked
Preheat oven at 350. Mix together all ingredients until combined. Pour into pie crust, sprinkle reserved pecans over the top, and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for about forty minutes, or until a knife inserted in the middle does not emerge covered in raw pecan goop. Remove the foil and bake for 5 more minutes. Let rest an hour before serving.
