1)Are pies an important part of a holiday meal?
Absolutely. My mother was the best pie baker ever, and we always had pie for holidays and other special occasions. These days we tend to rely on our friend Dan the Amish baker for our pies, but we still crave them on special days.
2) Men prefer pie; women prefer cake. Discuss.
I think whoever came up with this idea was not from the crust-intensive Upper Midwest where the women like their pie just fine, thank you. I'm fond of gingerbread, and Fellow Traveler and I both like white cake on the rare occasions when we eat cake...but that's about it.
3) Cherries--do they belong in a pie?
I think they're fine in other people's pies, yes.
4) Meringue--if you have to choose, is it best on lemon or chocolate?
Again, yes. On rhubarb cream pie too.
5) In a chicken pie, what are the most compatible vegetables? Anything you don't like to find in a chicken pie?
If you ask Fellow Traveler, who was OD'd on frozen pot pies in her childhood, she'd say that chicken pie was not compatible with eating, period. Me, I don't mind savory pies; but if I'm going to eat a pot pie, chicken or otherwise, I want the peas in it to be bright and firm, not gray and mealy. Bad peas can really ruin a dish.
Bonus: What is the most unusual pie you have ever eaten? That would have to be concord grape juice pie, one of the specialties of our local Amish community. While most cookbook recipes for grape pie require a messy process of cooking whole grapes, then running them through a food mill and cooking down the residual juice, our Amish friends tell us they use their own canned grape juice and make a kind of transparent custard with it. However they make it, I like it and want to make it some day.
Bonus bonus: What is the most unusual pie you haven't yet eaten? This Christmas, which we will be spending at home, I'd like to try my hand at making tortiere, the French Canadian spiced meat pie that's a tradition during the holidays. Fellow Traveler has hinted that, unlike pot pie, she might enjoy this very meaty, un-veggie-laden dish. I'm thinking of making little muffin-cup tortiere canapes; somethin' like that.
7 comments:
Oh, I love cherry pie, (and apple, and cranberry/apple/raisen and wild blueberry,) Skip the nuts.
Cake: it has to have stuff in it, meaning, fruit, raisens, dates, etc. No fluffy cake for me. No nuts either. Unless it might be almond. Is there such a thing as an almond pie or cake?
Actually one of the reasons I like white cake is the combination of vanilla and almond flavoring -- not too much of either -- that's used in most of them. I know in the Old Country they used to make almost flourless tortes out of ground almonds, but my frugal family would never have invested that much money in a cake, LOL. Stollen was about as fancy as it got.
I'd probably like that if it had good quality almond extract and vanilla extract. But the torte sounds even better.
This was such a fun post to read, especially with your additions. I don't take to cherry pies, either.
let FT know that i'm soooo with her on the no pot-pies. *cheers* i'll tip a good amber ale FT's way!
the tortiere sounds ambitious indeed... best not to drink too much ale as you make it...
Mmm ... my mom used to make tortiere. I don't remember her recipe, but The New York Times cookbook has a good one.
How did the tourtieres turn out? Or did you get to them?
I have a suspicion, unconfirmed that because "tourte" in French = pigeon, cf. "turtle dove"...that the original French Canadian tourtiere was filled not with beef and pork, but with passenger pigeon...that it is basically a pigeon pie... what do you think?
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