Is pie as thoroughly American as maple syrup, griddle cakes, and corn
bread?
An American is likely to answer "Yes," while an Englishman might say
"No."
In the English "Who's Who" the "recreations" of most of the eminent
men and women of the time in Europe and America are referred to. Had
Théophile Gautier lived to be included in that volume, he would have
probably named among his favorite recreations "reading the dictionary,"
to which he is said to have been much addicted. I could never quite
see the fun of this diversion till I made the acquaintance of Murray's
wonderful Oxford dictionary, which traces the meaning and history of
every word back through the centuries.
Nothing, surely, could be more interesting, for instance, than to read
in this work that the first reference to apple pie, so far as known,
was as far back as 1590, when Greene, in his "Arcadia," wrote the line:
"Thy breath is like the steame of apple-pyes"--thus proving himself, as
I may add, an epicure as well as a poet and a lover.
On another page we read: "The _pie_ appears to have been at first of
meat or fish; doubtful or undefined uses appear in 16th century; _fruit
pies_ (also called, especially in the north of England and Ireland, in
Scotland, and often in the United States, _tarts_) appear before 1600,
the earliest being Apple-Pie."
Were these apple pyes the same as the American apple pie of our day?
I doubt it. If they had been, the Britons of our time certainly would
make the same kind, but they don't. Their substitute for our fruit pie
is the tart, which has only one crust and is otherwise different.
Even if it could be proved that we got our fruit pie from England,
shape, contents, and all, I still would claim it as a national American
dish--American by right of conquest, improvement, and countrywide use.
Millions of American families eat it daily, at lunch or at dinner. The
poet Emerson even ate it at breakfast, and when a guest refused it, he
was surprised and exclaimed: "What is pie for?"
You can make a fruit pie in the American style in Great Britain or on
the Continent, but you cannot duplicate its excellence, for the simple
reason that European fruit is rarely as tasty as American fruit.
It must be admitted that in the making of a light, digestible crust
most American cooks could learn a lesson from foreign pastry cooks, who
would advise them, among other things, to partly bake the lower crust
or glaze it with white of egg before the fruit is put in. But, after
all, the Flavor of the fruit is the all-important thing, and in that
the American pie is supreme.
The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, in his eloquent sermon on apple pie,
exclaimed: "But, oh! be careful of the paste! Let it be not like putty,
nor rush to the other extreme and make it so flaky that one holds his
breath while eating, for fear of blowing it away. Let it not be plain
as bread, yet not rich like cake."
Has ever an English divine paid such attention to pie? No; the apple
pie is ours, as much as our flag.
But alack and alas, the apple pie is often insulted and maltreated in
its own bailiwick by being over-seasoned. Beecher called attention to
the fact that "it will accept almost every flavor of every spice," and
he mentioned nutmeg, cinnamon, and lemon as among those which it is
permissible to use.
"Permissible," yes, but most inadvisable. You may say it is a matter of
taste, and that you have a right to put as much nutmeg, cinnamon, or
lemon extract into your pie or your apple sauce as you please. If you
make it for yourself and your family, yes; but not if you make it for
a restaurant. The spices named are penetrating and monopolistic; even
in small quantities they obliterate the natural Flavor of the apple,
or at least modify it in a way obnoxious to those true epicures who
like their fruit dishes _au naturel_, just as they like prime cuts of
butcher's meats without obtrusive sauces, and sausage mild-flavored,
without the screaming sage or too much pepper.
Nutmeg is the spice with which our apple pie is most frequently
alloyed. An alloy is defined as "anything that reduces purity or
excellence." If you put nutmeg into apple pie or sauce, you make it
taste always the same, be it made of European or American fruit or of
this or that variety of apples. Now, to an epicure the best thing about
apple pie or sauce is that when served without spice _it retains the
peculiar Flavor of the kind of apple it is made from_.
To go to your grocer and buy "cooking apples" is almost as bad as to
ask for "cooking butter." The best butter and the best apples should
always be used in the kitchen--if you can afford to buy them. If you
cannot, eat oatmeal and prunes.
To those who have refined palates it makes a world of difference
whether their apple pie and sauce are made of "cooking apples" or of
Gravensteins, Red Astrachans, Newtown Pippins, or Spitzenbergs. Each
variety--and dozens of others might be named--has its own special
charm; and the same is true of pies and sauces made of other fruits.
In the baking of pumpkin pie, which, next to that made of apples,
is perhaps the most characteristically American pie, mace (which is
derived from the covering of the nutmeg seed) or some other spice,
is not only permissible but commendable; while mince pie, which we
borrowed from the English but eat probably oftener than they do, is
such a jumble of condiments--sugar, raisins, currants, almonds, apples,
lemon and orange juice and peel, molasses, suet, quince jelly, and
other things _ad libitum_--that it makes little difference what you add
in the way of mace, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, or other spices within
reason. Time was when caraway seeds, saffron, rosewater, ambergris,
and other impossible things were added. As made now, mince pie is as
agreeable to most palates as it is indigestible. I am told it can be
made so as to be easily digestible, but I "hae ma doots."
Some years ago mince pie was dignified by being made the subject of a
political squabble in Washington. Dr. Wiley wanted a definition of
"normal mincemeat," and thirty manufacturers were summoned to testify.
Evidently some of these manufacturers were making mincemeat without the
chopped meat which is an essential ingredient of the best home-made
article, for they engaged a trained lexicographer, Prof. C. D. Childs,
of the University of Pennsylvania, to prepare a treatise on mince
pie, in which it was demonstrated that mincemeat does not necessarily
contain meat.
The definition in Murray's Oxford Dictionary is "a mixture made of
currants, raisins, sugar, suet, apples, almonds, candied peel, etc.,
and sometimes meat chopped small; used in mince pies"; which shows that
in England, also, meat is not always an ingredient. It is only fair to
consumers, however, that the law should compel the manufacturers to
print the ingredients in each case on the label. Mince pie with meat is
certainly better than mince pie without.
Perhaps I erred in saying that pumpkin pie is, next to apple pie, the
most characteristic American pastry dish. It certainly is not more so
than cranberry pie.
The cranberry is not exclusively American, like maple syrup, terrapin,
and canvasback duck, for it grows in some parts of Europe; but it
remained for American epicures to discover its rare gastronomic merits.
It took genius to do this, for in its natural wild state the berry
is excessively astringent and acid. But it had a Flavor that made
an irresistible appeal and invited further cultivation. Particularly
agreeable is the _Oxycoccus erythrocarpus_, a variety which grows
in the mountains of Virginia and Georgia. The European berries,
though they used to be abundant in England, were neglected because of
their inferior Flavor, and England now imports cranberries in large
quantities from the United States, as do France, Italy, and Germany,
chiefly for tarts.
Cape Cod is now the chief camping ground of the cranberry. It has been
doubled in size by cultivation, and its Flavor improved by enriching
and draining the soil, and in other ways. The annual production is
about three million bushels. Thanks to the growing demand for them, bog
lands which were worth $5 an acre now sell at $300 to $700 per acre.
The darker the berry the richer the flavor. Once upon a time I wrote
a book on Romantic Love and Personal Beauty in which I tried to prove
that brunettes are more beautiful than blondes. I am not sure that I
succeeded--there are certainly some ravishing exceptions!--but in the
matter of foods there can be no doubt that as a rule the dark are finer
than the light colored.
Does not Boston, the center of American culture, give its name to brown
bread, and does not Boston prefer dark eggs to the anemic white ones
favored in New York? Does any one who has had the good sense to buy
"rusty" oranges and grapefruit deny that they are sweeter and more
fragrant than the light yellow ones? Ask any epicure if he does not
think the second joint of a fowl is more savory than the white meat.
Bread which has a deep brown crust is more tasty than pale crumb.
Crackers toasted brown are more appetizing than crackers untoasted.
English rusks, German zwieback, Italian breadsticks, are they not all
brunettes? Do not all vegetables, fruits, and berries darken as they
ripen and develop their flavor?
The darkest cranberries therefore are the ones you want to buy. And be
sure that your cook in preparing cranberry sauce or jelly presses the
pulp through a sieve to remove the indigestible skins. It is only when
they are cooked whole and candied with an equal weight of sugar that
the skins may be left on them.