Anne Dimock - Humble Pie: Musings on What Lies Beneath the Crust

Humble Pie copyright 2005 by Anne Dimock. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews. For information, write Andrews McMeel Publishing, an Andrews McMeel Universal company, 1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106.

E-ISBN: 978-1-4494-1069-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2005040974

www.andrewsmcmeel.com

Cover design by Julie Metz

Author photo by Wendy Woods

APPR

ATTENTION: SCHOOLS AND BUSINESSES

Andrews McMeel books are available at quantity discounts with bulk purchase for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, please write to: Special Sales Department, Andrews McMeel Publishing, 1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106.

For the Holy Trinity of Pie Makers
Mom, GeeGee, and Carla
I give thanks

Nothing as easily [as pie] stands for everything decent, good, honest, homey and American. Some people dont eat pork. Some dont eat any meat. Some people dont ingest caffeine or alcohol. Is there anyone who, as a statement of ethics or conscience, doesnt eat pie?

Roger Welsch

To make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

Carl Sagan

Good apple pies are a considerable part of our domestic happiness.

Jane Austen

I pull the bowl from underneath the counter. I get the rest of my equipment outmeasuring spoons, cups, a pastry cutter, a knife, two forks. I get the ingredientsflour, Crisco, salt, sugar. I waver over which pans to usethe nine-inch or ten-inch, Pyrex or aluminum? Weight is important in this decision, and the Pyrex pans would add more heft, even though I like the results better when using them. These are pies that must make a thousand-mile journey on my arm and the extra weight must be justified.

I had already decided there will be two pies, and they will be apple, and they will be large. One pie, even a large one, would not be enough. There will be twelve of us to feed. One pie might be barely enough if I could trim back everybodys appetite and be satisfied with serving slivers and not slices. But I cant be satisfied with that; it is against the generous nature of the pie itself. This is no time to stint. These are the pies that will accompany me to my mothers funeral. These are the pies meant to feed my father and brothers and sisters and cousins. In about twenty hours we will all be there, in Florida, to hail Mary and her life and speed her on to her new home. But first things first; before church, before tears, we must all have a piece of pie.

The bags are packed and the airline tickets lie across the top of a briefcase. All thats left to do is make these pies and go. Inside that briefcase is the eulogy Im to deliver. Ive written and rewritten it and I think it is okay for spoken words. But the unspoken eulogy is in the pies.

I decide to use one aluminum pan and one foil pan and pick my way through a stack to find the right sizes. How did I acquire so many of these pans? I choose two and try them out for size in the double-tier pie basket that will be my carry-on. They fit, just barely, and I must be mindful not to mound up the apples too high because each tier has a limited height. Im like a backpacker trying to shave off ounces by whittling away at a bar of soap. I decide to reduce the number of apples Ill use by two, but only two.

The really crucial decision is what type of pie to make in the first place. August is known for a wide variety of piesberries, rhubarb, peach, cherrybut it is a little early in Minnesota for apple pies. Early apples come to market in the middle of August, but they are softer and of a different flavor than later apples. I once made a study of which early apple was the best for pies and Paula Red was the winner. If I couldnt get some Paula Reds, I would abandon apple and make rhubarb and blueberry instead. Oh, but to have apple piesthat would be best of all!

As if by magic, my preferred-customer announcement card from a local orchard arrived in the mornings mail. The orchard would open for business in three days. But I need apples now. I telephone and speak to the answering machine: Do you have any Paula Reds available now? I need only one peck. Ill come right over. Very important pie to make. Please call back. And someone does. Yes, the Paula Reds are ready, and if all I need is one peck shell go out and pick them for me even though they arent open for business yet. I go right over and get the apples. Now I can begin.

The sun sets and the air is full of warmth and dampness. Nine oclock at night is a good time to start making pies. It is all coming back to methe fireflies in the backyard, the creaky garden gate, the smell of tomatoes on my handsAugust. The pie work always began in August and the first pie signaled the start of a massive effort, a campaign that would end more than a hundred pies later. With all my ingredients and equipment arranged before me, I begin my first pie this August.

The flour in a bowl, a little salt and sugar, stirred with a fork. The shortening next, cut into cubes, then flakes, then gravel. I settle into a familiar rhythm, a familiar purpose. I could do this with my eyes closed. My daughter is at my elbow, cranking the handle of the rotating apple slicer, a tool not available to my mother and me when we occupied a similar tableau some thirty-five years ago. The scene is overripe with nostalgia, yet more is different than is the same. Different apples, different tools, different reason for doing this. A different daughter and a different relationship. We use a lot less sugar now and the pies are better for it. Its the tradition of this thats important. Its the generosity of pies I want you to understand.

I n the beginning, there was pie and there always would beat least in the house where I grew up. Blueberry pie, rhubarb pie, and most of allapple pie. Other families defined themselves through traditions of camping, holidays, or ethnic identification, but we knew ourselves by the pies we baked and ate. We had nothing else to provide family cohesion. The usual glue of church, school, community volunteer work, sports, pets, music, Little League, and Girl Scouts didnt take in my family. I dont know why.

This odd nuclear family of two parents and five children, the first generation on both sides of parents to leave home and move away, we cut ourselves from the usual ties and free-floated through a suburban existence in the 1950s. Was that it? Perhaps the postwar euphoria carried us over harsh conditions and set us down gentlytoo gentlyon the green grass of the private swim club. Maybe the babies that arrived at intervals of two or three yearsand surely that was why it was called rhythm, five in all, me the dotted half note in the middle of the measurewere born without appreciable memory. Our rivalries and alliances fell apart at no more than a hint of something better.