Easy as Pie

They say, I am told, that those who can make good bread can’t make good pastry, and vice-versa.  Who exactly “they” are remains unclear – the nebulous they, I suppose – but I first heard this pronouncement from the husband of a woman I used to know.  He enjoyed cooking and made perfectly adequate pie, but refused to learn how to make bread, which I considered rather sad.  When I pressed him about the theory, he suggested that it had something to do with hand-warmth, but I suspect it’s a little more likely to be about patience.

Pie making requires a different kind of patience from the kneading and rising and shaping patience used in bread making.  It requires a certain deftness and delicacy of touch, but has been blown into a full-scale phobia by people who like to think of certain kinds of cooking as mysterious, or the result of intrinsic or divine gift.

I grew up in a kitchen that did not discriminate against pie or bread.  The perpetually slightly chilly hands with which my mother kneaded her acclaimed loaves of brown bread were the same hands that produced beautiful and tender pastry in white or (more frequently) whole wheat incarnations for both sweet and savory pies.  I am sure the Amish, or any farm culture for that matter, would be astonished at the idea of being able to make one and not the other.  I can barely imagine what it would be like to be denied the pleasure of making an entire category of food. 

How difficult could it be, if we have a saying that suggests otherwise?  Of course, it has been claimed that the phrase “easy as pie” actually refers to eating the pie, not making it, but that seems counter-intuitive to me.  For one thing, eating pie isn’t particularly easier (or more difficult) than eating anything else; if it were custard, for example, or something else that simply slides down the throat, there might be a something to that theory.  Pie is delicious, but you still have to chew it.  For another point, the sheer variety of things that qualify as pie – some, like Shepherd’s Pie or English Fish Pie not even requiring pastry – includes recipes that aren’t remotely finicky or difficult, but the hallmark of country cooking.

I suspect that in the days when pie appeared regularly on the tables of folks in general, when our culture was not as obsessed with foods perceived as naughty, pie was simply a handy way to use up assorted leftovers.  Don’t really have enough roast left over to serve six people?  Chop it up, add vegetables, wrap it in a crust or top with potatoes or biscuits, and watch the enthusiasm with which it’s received.  Okay, that’s not going to work with, say, a lemon meringue pie, but I suspect savory pies originated before sweet ones.  Mind you, cobblers and crisps, buckles, grunts and slumps all are fruit desserts that bear some varying degree of similarity to pie, and employ a pretty significant array of crust and crust-substitutes.

Much like the sandwich, small pies, “hand-pies”, pasties, and patties pretty much evolved from the need to keep one’s hands somewhat clean while transporting/eating the food.  Pastry is a handy, all-purpose container that adds flavour and texture to the finished dish;  ideally, it can be tailored to the individual dish to be flaky, substantial, leak-proof, or in the case of New England specialties, redoubtable.  Australia still has a fine tradition of pie: the Aussie Meat Pie, which is usually dressed with ketchup, and is so prevalent and popular that it dominates over hotdogs and burgers at sporting events.  I don't know if pies are still being made in the home, down under, but the Australian enthusiasm for the meat pie is encouraging.

Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy boy, Billy boy?  It wasn’t all that long ago that a woman’s suitability as a prospective wife was strongly linked to her ability to make a decent pie, and while I would not advocate a return to such a silly and arbitrary standard (or any set standard at all), this does suggest that pie-making is not an unreachable grail for the home cook.  In fact, it rather implies that it used to be a fundamental skill, and if we’ve lost that as a cultural norm it is perhaps because many of my generation were never taught how to cook by their families, or perhaps had families who just didn’t cook.

Is this why pie-making has fallen somewhat by the wayside?  While a number of my friends and contemporaries enjoy cooking recreationally, not many of them put a from-scratch meal on the table every night – or even five nights out of seven.   The microwave has largely done away with the need to get creative about coping with leftovers, and heating small portions of food has never been more convenient.  The pressures of our hectic modern living means it is easy to spend more money to eat less well, opting for comparatively expensive eating options.  If we have more money than time (and not enough of either) many of us would rather spend the money than labour at an unfamiliar task.

Is it that heating has replaced cooking?  Are we too busy to make pie, too lazy, too scared, or too concerned about our waistlines?  I think the last time I ordered pie in a restaurant may have been a fresh lemon tart on my birthday, almost a year ago.  I remember that it was delicious, but I also remember looking sideways at the chocolaty decadence masquerading as cake that my boyfriend ordered.  I can’t even remember the last time I saw a meat pie on a restaurant menu.  Perhaps pie is more of a homely sort of dish.  Delicious and comforting, yes, but not really fancy enough for those special occasion dinners, and I don’t usually eat dessert when dining out casually.

We can stop the senseless attrition of the homemade pie.  I’ll need help, though, because there’s only so much pie one gal can eat.  The prescription is easy enough: make a pie.  Even if the pastry isn’t quite perfect, the sense of accomplishment will add flavour and tenderness to every bite and your next one will be better still, because practice makes perfect.  Fight the good fight.  Go on – make a pie.  It’s easier than you think.

February 2005