We Call It “Rustic”
Let me start by saying, Happy Mother’s Day! I say that as a blanket statement to all mothers, but also specifically my momma and other matriarchs in my family. I come from a long line of women who embodied the concept of grit and grace, and steel and velvet. I hope to someday carry on that lineage.
Now to celebrate my mom today, we’ve planned a “secret” supper menu. I thought it would be cool to end the meal with the infamous pie my mom used to make. The recipe came from my great grandma Said. The very same pie that my mom had made the night my dad proposed to her. I remember helping her make this when I was little. But it’s been quite a while since she’s made it.
So yesterday I pulled out the recipe on the stained yellow card. I consider myself a baker. So I was confident going into this project. This pie crust only has four ingredients after all. Easy.
Before we get into the pie crust saga, we need to talk about the filling. The recipe card calls for frozen peaches. But that sounded to easy and I wanted to challenge myself (famous last words, I’m sure). So I bought fresh peaches, and I looked up a recipe for what to do with them.
Have you ever tried to peel peaches? Me either.
But this recipe made it sound easy—boil for 60 seconds and dump into an ice bath—the skin will come right off…right. Except we didn’t have ice (what?) so I had to settle with just cold water. And I fought with those peaches.
Then I was supposed to take the seed out and slice. Peaches are much harder to pit and slice when they don’t have skin. They are slippery. Add to that that they weren’t overly ripe. Sigh. Lesson learned. Great grandma knows best and I’ll be going with frozen peaches next time.
So then I moved onto the crust. I tried three times before giving up. That’s right, I threw in the towel and decided I would try again when mom was around.
The first attempt I measured out 8 Tablespoons of four, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 8 Tablespoons of Crisco. I’m supposed to mix it with my hands until crumbly. But it was super sticky. Not crumbly at all. You seasoned pie makers are laughing. I read the measurements wrong. It was only supposed to be 3 Tablespoons of Crisco.
Okay. That’s my bad. Time to start over.
The second attempt I got a good crumble, saved out 1/2 a cup of that crumble for topping. And then I added 1/2 of cold water to what remained. And I made pie crust soup.
Sigh. Not sure what happened that time, so then I tried again and decided I would add the water slowly.
Attempt #3 actually went okay…. I had a decent pastry, maybe it didn’t hold together quite well enough. But I could roll it out. And this was supposed to make two crusts. And the recipe said “make it thin.” But I tell you, I could see our stovetop through this crust and I could not get it to cover the pie dish.
It was clear to me that there was a reason why mom had started to buy pre-made crusts.
Dad agreed that it was a good idea to try again when Mom was around.
When Mom got home I told her this whole story, laughing. Dad said, “There’s something wrong with that recipe, you need to look at it with her.” Mom was sure that it was fine and that she had used it several times.
We went into the kitchen together and I showed Mom the card.
She started laughing.
It turns out, Mom wrote this card out when she was in middle school on an afternoon when she was watching her grandma make pies—who didn’t have a written out recipe, she did everything by “feel.” It also turns out that a “heaping Tablespoon” isn’t a measuring spoon, it’s a serving spoon.
Mom said, “She just scooped it out and I had to write something down!”
So we giggled while we made the pie crust (it took us two attempts, which made me feel better). It’s not the prettiest pie, but we have high hopes that it will taste good! We’re calling it rustic and reclaimed, which gives me and Mom a good chuckle.
I could not have known either of those keys to this recipe without my mom.
But I will never forget this recipe now. And I probably just about have it memorized after so many attempts in one day!
There are memories of my own attached to this recipe, so it’s yet another thing that I will eagerly share with my own kids someday. I’ll be passing on a legacy of pie crusts, grit, and grace.
