To fully understand how I feel about pie and the making of pie crusts, you have to first understand two things: how often my family had pie growing up and my mother's pies.
First, pies were a rare treat in my house. We ate pie on Thanksgiving and for the few days after Thanksgiving until the leftovers were gone. That was our only guaranteed pie of the year. Sometimes Mom would make them for Christmas, and sometimes we would get them when we went out to eat. Because of it's scarcity, pie was an extremely valuable commodity to me, and I think to my siblings as well. Cake could be gotten at any old birthday party, and cookies and brownies were good but much more common. Pie was special, decadent, formal, and carried with it an air of special celebration. My family rarely went out to eat, but when we did, the two places we went most often were Homestead Farm, which specialized in pies, and Frontier Pies. I'm sure you're seeing the theme. I remember requesting that Mom make quiche for my birthday dinner every year mostly because it was like eating pie for dinner, and I couldn't think of anything more special for my birthday. One year, my brother Aaron actually requested that Mom make an apple pie for his birthday, and it blew me away.
No way, I remember thinking,
You can do that? I had no idea that pie was an option. I still remember the birthday dinner with the apple pie, and it wasn't even my birthday.
The second thing to be understood is that my mother is a master of the pie crust. She makes her crusts with Crisco, skill, and seemingly effortless flair. Mother's pie making was full of mystery and anticipation. First, pie crusts were not rolled out on corner of the counter. Any old batch of cookies could be produced from the counter top, but pies were rolled out on the kitchen table (or the island after we remodeled), the centerpiece of everything, like some kind of offering on an altar. The only other food that I remember being table-only productions were my mother's special rolls (also only made on Thanksgiving and Christmas). The altar was first thoroughly cleansed from all the accumulated refuse of holiday baking, then the ingredients were assembled. The ingredients to a pie crust are simple, and the tools of its creation are unexciting. This just made it all the more mysterious when Mom stood over the cleaned and floured altar. She learned how to make her pie crusts from my Great Grandmother Macke, whom I never met, but on whose stoneware "everyday" dishes we also ate for holiday meals until we inherited the china from my grandparents. Because she said it made them turn out better, Mom only ever made one batch of dough at a time, enough for two shells, no matter how many pies were going to be made that day. Mom's pie crusts are always golden brown and flaky. Their edges are always perfectly crimped. Her pies are always beautiful, tasty, and treated with reverence in our family. If you placed my family in front of a gleaming chest of jewels and a plate full of Mom's pies, I bet at least half of would go get a slice of pie before opening the chest. Jewels will wait for you forever, but Mom's pies are a limited time only.
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| Mom's trademark lemon meringue, except that she made me do the crust this year, so bears a strong resemblance to Stonehenge. Oh, and my dad. Hi Dad! Look, you're famous! |
As we grew up and left home we realized that not everyone's pie crusts were as good as Mom's. We realized that some people don't even like pie. We learned that to other people, pies weren't as rare or as special. We also learned, one by one, that pie crusts weren't as easy as Mom made them look. I think all of the girls in my family eagerly approached making our first pie crust, with the feeling that we were being initiated into a special family cult, growing up, becoming women. Then we discovered that for Mom, making a pie crust may be a matter of fifteen minutes, during which she can calmly converse with other people and discuss plans for the future. For us, making a pie crust is an ordeal of concentration, often taking well over an hour, during which we will snarl at anyone who comes within range. Then, after our pie crusts have been rolled out but are still uneven, they have been transferred to the pan but broke and had to be repaired, and the edges look looked like they'd been mauled by a five-year-old with bad motor skills, we would survey the product of all our hard labor and try not to cry. Our attempts at pie crusts were sad, misshapen, circular imitations of our mother's robust rings of glory. So we gave up.
Well, let me clarify. Beth and Rachel gave up. I apparently didn't have that luxury. Every year at Thanksgiving, Mom makes me do one set of crusts. And, at least once a year, I do one on my own. You see, as painful as this process is, and as frustrating, humiliating, and depressing as I find making pie crusts to be, I can't just abandon them like my brief silk ribbon embroidery phase. Being able to make a good pie crust is a skill I respect, and I want both the skill and the respect. Good pie crusts are an important memory of my childhood, and I want to be able to be the kitchen priestess on my own altar someday. Making pie crusts makes me feel connected to both my mother and the great grandmother I never met, like I'm the next step in the matriarchal order. So I keep doing it. I keep sighing and cussing my way through pie crusts, a few every year. And, to my great delight, gradually I'm getting better. Last Sunday I made a pie for a friend's birthday, and it only took me an hour and a half.
And I didn't cry or cuss even once! (Honestly, I don't think one should ever cuss when doing an activity that reminds one so much of one's mother. Actually, I don't cuss much at all, but pie crusts, slippery climbing holds, and cold winds are sometimes exceptions.)
Of course, it was a butter crust instead of a Crisco one, and those are easier, but I'm still proud of myself. It still looked a bit ghetto and amateur, but I've made much, much worse.
But I also hope to someday make much, much better. In fact, this year, on Pi Day, I intend to make myself make another pie. That'll be three in three months, which is, for me a record.
