Five little pies
Sep. 15th, 2003 01:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beetigerThis weekend, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sythyry's parents came to visit us for probably the last time before the advent of Life With Moth. The two big apple trees in the side yard are laden with fruit, at least on the sections you can see from the kitchen window. On closer inspection, the far sides of them are nearly bare. Who knew that trees were prone to deceptive marketing presentations? But in any case, apples are here in brown and green and pink, and I feel morally obligated to process as many of them as I can manage.
Bard's father is also a better baker than I am, so I thought we'd talk him into making pies with us. (Un)fortunately, Bard's parents had thoughtfully picked up for us a big box of fruit, including a whole bunch of apples. We ended up doing various things, including seeing a wonderful little art exhibit about food at the Katonah Museum of Art. (Piece that gave me the most "food for thought", as it were: photographs, on plastic trays under harsh flourescent lights, of the items included in the requested last meals of executed criminals. Piece I liked best: lovingly hand drawn naturalist style depictions of the shapes of puffed cereals available in the early eighties.) But we did not make pies.
I knew I couldn't get started on the apples in the yard until disposing of the apples already in the house, so I ignored my more human obligations and started making pies. Since I'm currently in a mental state in which eating a whole pie at a sitting might seem like a good idea, and sincesythyry is trying to eat somewhat more moderately itself, I made small pies, in little disposable tart pans that will work well in the freezer. Bard helped me peel and chop apples and mix them with sugar and starch and cinnamon and vanilla, which made me feel very loved.
I am not a very consistent sort of baker, so my pies do not look all the same. One looked rather canonical, just like a regular small pie you might buy from a small-pie-seller. One came out very tall, heaped with double the fruit it really deserved. One ended up with an applique of crust leaves and a little floweret in the center. One had a high crimped edge. And the last one had a latticework top instead of a solid one, because I'd misjudged and ended up just a wee bit short on piecrust.
On looking at my work, I realized that I had (sort of) recreated the Fable of the Five Little Pies. This is a story that Bard's grandmother Rose Bloom used to tell all the time in her old age, which was the only time I knew her. It was a story that somehow proved that she was a good and loving and competent mother, because once, in her youth, in response to some sort of request from Bard's uncle, or maybe it was his father, she had baked Five Little Pies, All Different, to indulge her sons. The men in question do not remember this, but used to humor her about it. It was an ancient and apocryphal source of pride for her, and I was much less bored of it than anyone else. I loved Rose Bloom for the brief time I knew her; she left me the ring from which the stone I wear in my wedding band now came, before Bard and I got married, because she knew he'd get around to marrying me someday.
I boiled up the peels and cores for jam. I love apple jam made without additional pectin. It has a different texture than jam made with citrus pectin, clear and honeylike. Usually, my apple jam comes from the tree apples outside, and comes out a golden honey color. But this came from bright red apples from a farm in Connecticut, and much to my surprise the juice boiled up a lovely shade of pink. It also tasted a bit insipid, so I fished in the pantry to find something to fix it, and found a bottle of rosewater, which I added generously. So now, in my refrigerator, there's a jar of sparkling pink rose jelly, a bit of laignappe from the making of Five Little Pies, from apples that were a gift from the Blooms. The Breakfast of Generations.
sythyry's parents came to visit us for probably the last time before the advent of Life With Moth. The two big apple trees in the side yard are laden with fruit, at least on the sections you can see from the kitchen window. On closer inspection, the far sides of them are nearly bare. Who knew that trees were prone to deceptive marketing presentations? But in any case, apples are here in brown and green and pink, and I feel morally obligated to process as many of them as I can manage.Bard's father is also a better baker than I am, so I thought we'd talk him into making pies with us. (Un)fortunately, Bard's parents had thoughtfully picked up for us a big box of fruit, including a whole bunch of apples. We ended up doing various things, including seeing a wonderful little art exhibit about food at the Katonah Museum of Art. (Piece that gave me the most "food for thought", as it were: photographs, on plastic trays under harsh flourescent lights, of the items included in the requested last meals of executed criminals. Piece I liked best: lovingly hand drawn naturalist style depictions of the shapes of puffed cereals available in the early eighties.) But we did not make pies.
I knew I couldn't get started on the apples in the yard until disposing of the apples already in the house, so I ignored my more human obligations and started making pies. Since I'm currently in a mental state in which eating a whole pie at a sitting might seem like a good idea, and since
sythyry is trying to eat somewhat more moderately itself, I made small pies, in little disposable tart pans that will work well in the freezer. Bard helped me peel and chop apples and mix them with sugar and starch and cinnamon and vanilla, which made me feel very loved.I am not a very consistent sort of baker, so my pies do not look all the same. One looked rather canonical, just like a regular small pie you might buy from a small-pie-seller. One came out very tall, heaped with double the fruit it really deserved. One ended up with an applique of crust leaves and a little floweret in the center. One had a high crimped edge. And the last one had a latticework top instead of a solid one, because I'd misjudged and ended up just a wee bit short on piecrust.
On looking at my work, I realized that I had (sort of) recreated the Fable of the Five Little Pies. This is a story that Bard's grandmother Rose Bloom used to tell all the time in her old age, which was the only time I knew her. It was a story that somehow proved that she was a good and loving and competent mother, because once, in her youth, in response to some sort of request from Bard's uncle, or maybe it was his father, she had baked Five Little Pies, All Different, to indulge her sons. The men in question do not remember this, but used to humor her about it. It was an ancient and apocryphal source of pride for her, and I was much less bored of it than anyone else. I loved Rose Bloom for the brief time I knew her; she left me the ring from which the stone I wear in my wedding band now came, before Bard and I got married, because she knew he'd get around to marrying me someday.
I boiled up the peels and cores for jam. I love apple jam made without additional pectin. It has a different texture than jam made with citrus pectin, clear and honeylike. Usually, my apple jam comes from the tree apples outside, and comes out a golden honey color. But this came from bright red apples from a farm in Connecticut, and much to my surprise the juice boiled up a lovely shade of pink. It also tasted a bit insipid, so I fished in the pantry to find something to fix it, and found a bottle of rosewater, which I added generously. So now, in my refrigerator, there's a jar of sparkling pink rose jelly, a bit of laignappe from the making of Five Little Pies, from apples that were a gift from the Blooms. The Breakfast of Generations.
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no subject
Date: 2003-09-15 10:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-15 01:07 pm (UTC)It's also one of those recipes that can be easily made for any size!
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2003-09-15 02:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2003-09-16 09:10 am (UTC)I think we ended up with over 40 lbs. of apples. Mom went through every apple recipe she could think of, and any visitor to our house was not permitted to leave empty-handed.
On a different note, I really enjoyed reading this entry. Very vivid images.