Tastes

Pie is one of the oldest prepared foods, dating as far back as ancient Rome. Above: Strawberry rhubarb pie with a braided ribbon crust on top

— TASTES —

Easy as Pie

As versatile as they are delicious, pies provide the perfect showcase for seasonal, regional ingredients and artistic flourishes. by Andrea Bennett

Perennial favorite apple pie lends itself to many variations, from single crust (below) to brown sugar crumble crust topping. PIE IS as American as … well, you get the idea. Even Colonial America celebrated this flaky, buttery, sublimely variable dish, according to essayist Charles Dudley Warner. He mused in 1872 that the absence of pie in early New England households would be more noticeable than a scarcity of Bibles.

Far from waning in popularity as the years rolled by, pie has captivated the imaginations of everyone from home cooks to celebrity chefs. And the country’s piemakers have turned the dish into the ultimate showcase for regional bounty—from apples and bourbon to sweet potatoes and key limes.

Indeed, local flavor seems to be the key to pie-making, giving it great appeal for locavores and organic food enthusiasts. At PieconicNY in Chatham, New York, owner and baker Christopher Knable bakes a full two pounds of apples from his neighbor, Love Apple Farm in Ghent, into each towering Backyard Apple Pie. “Your fillings have to be really superb,” says Knable, who searches out seasonal produce like the short-lived spring rhubarb from Samascott Orchards in Kinderhook and Hudson Valley honey from Bee Hollow Farm for his rich Bees Knees Salted Honey pie. His 100-pie library includes a recipe for the same cardamom lemon buttermilk pie Martha Washington received in 1750 from her new mother-in-law.

Colorado Springs’ Gold Star Pies truck sells slices of homemade artisan pie.

“We only bake seasonally,” says Heather Briggs, whose Gold Star Pies truck has become a mobile icon in Colorado Springs, Colorado. “When the Palisade peaches reach the Colorado slope, or we can get rhubarb from Black Forest [20 miles north], we’ll use whatever is in season,” she says.

“We make a fall seller, pecan pie, which we top with crunchy toasted cocoa nibs year-round,” says Lisa Olin, founder and owner of L.A. bakery Cake Monkey. Her bestseller is also a year-round favorite: a cherry almond pie made with tart cherries roasted first in the oven with vanilla bean and brown butter and poured into a pie shell over frangipane. A sprinkling of demerara sugar over the top gives it its signature crunch.

CRUST MUSTS

Among pie-makers, there may be no more hotly debated pie fundamental than the crust. Once dismissed as a mere vessel to hold the filling, a flaky crust is now the gold standard—and it can be achieved in various ways.

In her crust clinic, Briggs teaches students that cold dough hitting a hot oven is the secret to success, even at 6,500 feet in elevation. PieconicNY’s crust has a less traditional secret: gluten-free vodka, which Knable mixes into his wet ingredients. “It retards the formation of the gluten and makes the crust really flaky. But it’s a little controversial in the pie world,” he concedes.

Harry Ludlow, whose family has been farming the land at Fairview Farm at Mecox in Bridgehampton, New York, since 1870, uses lard from the family farm, which they render and cut with butter to achieve the ultimate flaky crust. “Lard has gotten a bad reputation,” he says, “but nutritionally it’s much better for you than butter.”

Of course, there is more to pie than taste. Nostalgic, homey, celebratory, a canvas for creative innovation and reinvention, it is perhaps above all, communal.

“No one eats a whole pie by themselves,” Briggs says. “Most people are sharing pie, gathering around a pie. Pies bring people together.”