My grandmother made the world’s best pie crust; each one was always that perfect, holy grail combination of tender and flaky, melt-in-your-mouth delicious. As good as the fillings were — creamy banana, puckery lemon with fluffy meringue, tart strawberry rhubarb — it’s that crust that sticks in my sense memory. Grandma learned how to make pie from her mother, my great-grandmother, who in old farm-wife tradition, spent every Sunday making seven pies for the coming week. I inherited her best cookbook: a wonderfully battered volume published by a prairie flour company. The pie section is the most well-worn part of the whole book, pages stained and crusted, the margins filled with her notes.
Now I’m in charge of making the pies for family gatherings. It would be so much easier to just go to the store and buy one of those ready made crusts, one of those strange tubes with the dough inside. Even my grandmother, her hands not nimble enough for pastry making any more, does that now. It’s not like anybody besides me cares, or would even notice. But I can’t do it. Work may be piling up around my ears, and I might be up baking until midnight. I might be so tired and cranky that I’ll throw the floury rolling pin across the kitchen (there’s a dent in the wall testifying to the likelihood of this). It just feels right to me, adding my own marks to that old cookbook, and it’s worth any stress or time.
That being said, you might want to stay out of rolling pin range, just for the next few days…
My grandmother (also a prairie farmer’s wife) also made the world’s best pie crust. Are we related??? I have since discovered, though, that Ontario humidity makes the damn crust stick to the counter more than hers ever did, so I happily adopted my mother-in-law’s trick of rolling the pastry between two sheets of wax paper. It reduced my stress levels considerably and got my crust back into near-grandmother quality. It also really helps me if I’m doing other things at the same time, so it can go back in the fridge between being worked. Last thing – rolled pie crust (in the pie plates or not) actually freezes really well, meaning you can do the crust in advance. Out of interest, is your crust pure lard based? My grandmother wouldn’t touch vegetable-based lard (I think she knew something about trans-fats ahead of her time) and didn’t use butter for pie crust.
Pie crust is a funny thing. I worked very hard to perfect my crust-making skills, because it seems important to me, too. In the last few years, my crusts have become awful. I don’t know if I’ve lost the ability or if it is my dreadful oven, ruining my efforts. This year, I bought pre-made crusts.
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We don’t have pie crust to buy here. When I first saw them in the US, I was incredibly perplexed and at least equally grossed out. My mind just couldn’t process it, going “What? What? WHAT?”. And the thing is, there are far weirder things than pie crust available ready-made in the US, but they just sort of amuse me. The pie crust thing still freaks me out. I just really don’t understand.
A few years ago, I read an article written by an American living in Germany, about how if a German can’t have their organic orange juice, they’d rather not have any juice at all. I think I may be exactly like that.
I’m sure you’re crusts (like your cookies) are delectable. Mine suck. Thank you Pillsbury Dough Boy for your pie crusts in a tube. He’s my hero.
Kim, how cool would it be if we were really related? Besides giving credence to that whole “every Canadian knows every other Canadian” thing.
My great-grandmother probably used all lard. My grandmother used shortening. The last few pies I went with butter and shortening, but I’m going to switch back to all butter, since the shortening crust gives me no end of trouble. Plus I think the butter crust is tastier. I like to chill/rest the dough in a big ziplock bag, roll while it’s still in the bag, and then just slice open the sides of the bag to get at the crust (an Alton Brown tip, I think?). But, man, I agree about them being funny: sometimes mine are sublime, and sometimes I cannot get them to work for the life of me.
I can understand the refrigerated crusts, but what really freaks me out is the ones you can buy off the shelf in the baking aisle. How long have those been there?
I can understand the refrigerated crusts, but what really freaks me out is the ones you can buy off the shelf in the baking aisle. How long have those been there?
At least since 1998. *nods*
We also have a tradition of great pie crust. As much as I love pie, I turn it down if the crust isn’t acceptable. I may be in charge of pie crust this year. I’ll find out when I see the to-do list Mom left me.
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