I answered the phone one day not long after embarking on the pie odyssey and it was my sister Susan who nonchalantly started the conversation with “So, are you rendering your own lard right now?” Which delighted me as a piece of sisterly silliness, much along the lines of our extended conversation about how I need my own churro machine. But I’ve been catching up on pie reading and just got to an article that Sara sent me (Melissa Clark, “Heaven in a Pie Pan: The Perfect Crust,” New York Times, 15 Nov. 2006) which discusses among other things the wonders of pie crusts made with leaf lard, beef suet and duck fat. Oh, and apparently some of these fats need to be rendered or otherwise processed at home. Now, I don’t currently eat meat. I’m not overly strict in restaurants etc., in part because it doesn’t always occur to me to ask in advance if the peanuts in the pie I am eating have been crushed in a ham bag. And yes, chances are I’ve eaten a pie crust with lard in it and not realized it. But consciously making a lard crust and rendering my own beef suet at home is another story. For the integrity of the pie odyssey, do I need to try making every type of pie crust? If I make a pie for my test subjects and don’t eat any of it, can I trust the survey results? I always figured that if I started eating meat again, it would be because I couldn’t pass up a feta dill burger or some sliced beef brisket, not because I felt compelled to make and eat a duck fat pie crust. But Crisco is, I am assuming, a relatively young product in the history of American cookery. To be true to the American apple pie, do I need to do some experimentation with lard? I’m somewhat torn…maybe my test subjects will protest the lard crust for health reasons and I can forgo making it…
Oh, and by the way, I am so disappointed that the Library of Congress' new Flickr site does not have any fat rendering photos. That's what the Library of Congress is for!
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Promoting the baking and consumption of pie in Virginia and beyond.
About Me
Aspects of Apple Pie to Be Investigated in the Pie Odyssey
- 1. Type of crust: double crust, crumb top, meringue or other
- 2. Variety of apple, or dare we suggest, combination of varieties of apples
- 3. Apple piece shape: chunks, slices, or other
- 4. Amount of sugar
- 5. Combination of spices
- 6. Necessity of miscellaneous other ingredients
Apple Pie Count:
- 3
Non-Apple Pies Made:
- Green Tomato Pie
- Concord Grape Pie
- Pear Raspberry with Crumb Topping
- Pear Tart
- Sour Cream Pear (2 varieties)
- Helen's Strawberry Birthday Pie
- Sour Cream Strawberry
- Strawberry experiment pie (scorched)
- Rhubarb with Crumb Topping
- not a Derby Pie
- Mock Apple
- Lemon Chess
Crisco used to date by the Pie Odyssey
- 1 cup
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February
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- A conundrum
- A pie present!
- Not an apple pie.
- Pie Across Virginia: Virginia Diner
- Happy Valentine's Day from the Pie Odyssey!
- Privateer of Pies - Results of Pie Tasting #2
- Pie #2: Captain Apple Pie
- Fool Proof Crust?
- Pie's the Word
- Dough you want to know a secret?
- "The Tom Hanks of Apple Pie" - Results of Pie Tast...
- Know Your Apples: Golden Delicious & Stayman
- Pie #1: Control Pie
- What, no pie?
- The Pie that Launched a Thousand Ships
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February
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12 comments:
Hi Ellen,
My mother was a professional pie baker and she only used lard for the crusts. Her pies were famous in our town, and the restaurant sold out every day. Me - I'm a Crisco-crust gal who puts woven crust tops on fruit pies.
Your Auntie Nancy's friend, Pat
Pat - did your mom render her own lard, or buy it at the store? Trsut the talented basket maker to do woven crusts! :)
Well, I'm of the considered opinion that if you really, really want to be as historically accurate and scientific as possible, you'd make a pie crust with actual animal lard (maybe rendered from the tongues of Nepalese golden-throated larks), even if you are understandably unwilling to try it yourself. It would be, after all, the Ur-Apple Pie and none other could claim such a position.
But at the same time, I recognize the gracelessness of making any sort of demands or requests, given the circumstances! If that's the only variation that we don't try, I would certainly say we, your loyal test audience, could certainly live with it.
Quack! No rendered fat crusts. Quack Quack!
--Mallard "Gooseberry Pie" Duck
My Ellen, as I recall, the outcome of the rigorous tests conducted by the NYT was that an all butter crust just tasted better than the ones with home-rendered lard.
If this were an academic paper, the issue of lard could be nicely footnoted with a reference to the NYT article and the reporter's findings. It would be a way to say that you, Ellen the Mistress of Pie, recognize the issue, but defer to the research of expert source noted in the FN. And it would save you the trouble of finding a duck carcass.
Who else besides me thinks I need to get out more? I've just turned Ellen's brilliant Pie Odyssey into an academic paper. I'm sorry, Ellen.
oh Helen, you are so right though - minimalistic footnoting is a sad, sad thing. Since I'm still struggling with making spellcheck work in blogland, beautiful footnotes are a ways off.
But back to the NYT article. You are correct in that the author champions the all butter crust, but only in comparison to crusts with either all or part Crisco; and apparently the "All-European-Style-Butter" crust is the king of butter crusts. Crusts made of animal fats or combination animal fats and butter beat all of these hands down though. So I kind of feel like if I don't make this, I'll always wonder if my pie could have been better. Although, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to use lard.
I do want to try nut butter crusts though, which got good reviews from Ms. Clark, even if not as gushing as the ones for the various members of the lard family.
Ellen, my mom didn't render her own lard - she bought it in 1-lb packages, like butter, but not cut into quarters. However, she would have know how to render it because when she grew up on the farm they did everything at home.
Ellen, I totally respect your reluctance to render your own lard at home. However, if you think that any of your pie-testers will turn up their noses at anything remotely edible (remember "Alien Autopsy"?) you are kidding yourself.
The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion has recipes for short-flake, medium-flake, and long-flake crusts. For the medium-flake crust (my favorite) it says you can use any combination of butter, lard, and Crisco, but their favorite is 3/4 c Crisco for texture and 1 stick butter for flavor. They seem to prefer shortening to lard because shortening doesn't spoil as quickly, is not as bad for you as lard (apparently), and has essentially the same chemical properties that lead to a flaky crust.
The book also discusses various crust additives, none of which I have even tried: a lightly-beaten egg for browning and texture; an egg yolk for tenderness; dried buttermilk powder for flavor; etc.
wow, I had no idea that flake levels were short, medium, and long as opposed to small, medium, and large. That's somewhat poetic - like pie crust runs track and field and different crusts are better for different race lengths.
Ellen - Your Auntie Nancy and I went for pie today in honor of the PieOdyssey and (belatedly) her birthday. At the LogCabin Restaurant in Baraboo we had pie with a delicious crust. Upon chatting up the waitress we learned that all their pie crusts are made with margarine instead of shortening. It was faintly salty, sturdy, and moderately flakey.
ooooh, a margarine crust! I can't believe I haven't tried that yet. I hope you gals enjoyed your pie!
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