The Ur-Pie

Lately, I've been thinking about the origins of pie in a purely speculative sense. It must be something like the sandwich creation myth - Evinrude, Subearl of Pie, was playing bones one night, when he felt a rumbling in his tumbling. He turned to his manservant, Throg, and asked for a snack that he can hold in one hand and eat without getting too messy. Throg went out to the cooking terrace and took stock - a little leftover boar stew, some rendered fat, and ground wheat they used for making crackers - and had an idea. What if Throg wrapped the cracker dough around a ladle of stew and then baked it on the stone? Then Evinrude could hold the cracker and the stew would be inside. yada yada yada.

Could be. That's not such a good example, but I like to make up stories about things I like. Early last year, I went to a concert by DeVotchKa, a band I had never heard of. A guitar, a Theremin, an accordion, a violin, a double bass, a sousaphone, a trumpet, and some drums (all these played in various combinations by four people) put on a pretty good show. I’ll just say it, it was awesome. Partly, it was just great to see all the little hipster boys in girl jeans really getting in to pop-polka. Also, near the end there was a girl acrobat who danced on scarves hanging from the ceiling about 10 feet from where I was standing. Mostly, though, it made me so happy to see those people having such fun playing all this disparate music together. You could almost hear their distinct personalities peeking out of the sound as a whole.

A few days later, I was poking around the interwebs, absent-mindedly looking for information about the band. I only made it as far as their website, though, because it was so vague and evocative that it tickled my fancy. I imagined three friends in music school together: two of them promising students, serious about their studies, the third a bright but distracted playboy who may or may not have been a regular class attendee, depending on whether the subject matter interested him. These three were taking a traditional music class together, and one evening while they were supposed to be working on a group project, they got to talking, and then maybe a little jamming. It was fun, and even after the class was over for the semester, they continued getting together. Maybe one night, the tuba player’s sometime-stoner friend, who was a drummer (tubas and percussion sit close to each other in orchestra), came over and joined in He confessed an abiding love of mariachi trumpet riffs. And so DeVotchKa was born.

This is most certainly not what happened, but it was exciting to think about.

I’ve been trying to reduce pie to its essence, at least the sweet pies. What is the barest list of ingredients you can have and still have something recognizable? You gotta have sugar, obviously. Then some eggs, to make it stick together. A little bit of liquid, because otherwise you just have sweet scrambled eggs, and some flavor, from the liquid or otherwise. Maybe some fat. Okay, of course some fat. Really, the simplest pie that is pie is sugar pie, honey bunch. Then you’ve got treacle tarts, and shoofly pie, and pecan pie, for when you want to be fancy. I could go on. So I will. Consider this next little while a meditation on sugar pie.

Brown Sugar Pie

Pastry for single crust pie
1 C packed brown sugar
4 T butter
3 large eggs
1 C whole milk
1 T vanilla
1 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350. Roll pastry into a 13" circle and place into a 9" pie plate. Tuck overhanging edges under and press the pastry into your desired edge. Freeze for 30 minutes.
Prick the crust with a paring knife or fork to prevent air bubbles. Line the crust with aluminum foil and fill with pie weights. Bake until the sides begin to set, about 15 minutes, then remove the foil and weights and bake a further 10 minutes, until the entire shell is a pale golden color. Remove pie plate from oven and set on a rack to cool.
Cream butter and sugar and salt.
Add eggs one at a time, incorporating each completely before adding the next.
Mix in milk and vanilla until well combined.
Pour filling into pie crust. Bake at 350 until edges puff and the center is set but still jiggles, 40 minutes to an hour. Allow to cool completely before slicing.
Serve with sweetened whipped cream, if desired.