As I recall from last year’s posting, we have a number of pie aficionados as readers. And, as Dr. Johnson might have said, “Truly, when a man is tired of pie, he’s tired of life.”
As I noted yesterday, I went to Saturday’s annual South Side Pie Challenge, conveniently located only a few blocks from my crib. It’s an event whose proceeds benefit the hungry of surrounding communities; and I was glad to make a donation to that cause, and to my stomach as well. I purchased four slices of pie (only one remains), but I wish I’d tried many more. For every pie I tried was fantastic.
These are pies made at home by Hyde Park residents, who go all out, as you’ll see, to produce a great pie for charity. Below are some photos of one of America’s great contributions to world gastronomy.
The Gates to Paradise:
There were four tables; this one featured cream pies (all pies were $3/slice, or four for $10):
The fruit pies:
Pumpkin and nut pies:
On to the individual pies. This one is “Calico cream pie”, baked by Hyde Park Cats, a local rescue organization:
Baked yogurt pie; isn’t it beautiful?
A red raspberry pie (since it was judged a “finalist”, I bought a piece, and it was superb), flanked by apple crumble pie on the left and peach pie on the right:
Black and red raspberry pie:
Banana cream pie:
I believe this beauty is a pumpkin pie:
Various pecan pies; a good pecan pie is not only uniquely American, but one of the best desserts in the world. A proper pecan pie is not just a veneer of nuts over a pure gelatinous filling, but has the nuts all the way through:
This is a chocolate cream pie with toasted marshmallows and graham crackers, clearly meant to resemble S’mores. I much regret not having tried it:
Another pie I should have bought: pistachio pie! I’ve never had one:
A pear pie—sadly, too few bakers make these—with a beautiful crust. One of the best pies I’ve ever had was a pear and cream-cheese pie made by someone who worked in my lab.
I’m not sure what this one is, but it was gorgeous:
A friend’s daughter (also shown in last year’s posting), serving up two slices. I had the chocolate peanut butter pie at lower right; it’s the one slice I haven’t yet eaten.
Okay, are you hungry for pie yet?
Yes! I am!
b&
Wat ta get my tummy gurgling😁
Pies! Makes me wish that I was once again living at Foster Hall on the Midway and could just walk over and get a piece! Does anybody know – is Foster Hall still there? Girls dorm it was, and run by a most sane and friendly grad student.
Mentation overload. Thank you!
Store bought pies invariably have twice as much sugar (at least) as necessary, so promoting home-bought pies is always a good deed.
I think I’d better go for a walk.
I gained a pound just looking at that!
In British parlance most of these are tarts. To be a pie you need pastry covering the top. 🙂
I always just thought tarts were little pies. 😀
I thought a not so nice little girl.
Very nice. I only wonder why they didn’t hold the event on Pi Day.
Wow, this is so overwhelming! I’ll have the apple pie, the pear pie, the chocolate cream pie, the…
What a great charity event! All the pies look delicious … especially the banana cream one.
I has an envy.
ssssooorry can’t speak: my mouth is watering *drooooooool*
I’d have a hard time to select the pies I’d want to eat. They all look so delicious!
Perhaps you can be a judge next year, because that hopefully means you get to taste all of them, yes?
Nice. I need more pie in my life. A lot more pie.
I’m not so pietic, I fancy chocolate and/or fruits, but a good slice can always find its way down…
I lodge an objection! There should have been at least some meat pies. A good steak and ale pie is truly a thing of beauty.
Yuck! One of my biggest disappointments as a child was thinking I was getting a dessert pie, only to have a meat pie put in front of me!
Don’t let that turn you off savory pies forever! There’s some really great cuisine that follows that form. Just don’t think of it as sweet or as a dessert or anything remotely like that…instead, think quiche, shepherd’s pie, pizza, Navajo tacos, that sort of thing. And then the English versions that Don Giovanni is referring to, which take the physical form of an American dessert pie but are filled, basically, with some sort of stew. You know those soups served in a hollowed-out loaf of bread? More like that, but with a (non-sweet) flaky pie crust rather than bread.
b&
I like the pies in NZ but that’s about it. The sausage rolls are good too.
NZ sausage rolls. Ewww.
Hadn’t heard of NZ sausage rolls. A couple quick Internet searches suggests they’ve got lots of potential; I’ve no doubt they’re great when done well.
b&
Well, as far as that objection goes…pies would therefore have to include pizza, quiche, tostadas, naan, Navajo fry bread, and a seemingly limitless list of other variations on the “stuff on bread” theme. Nearly all of them very much worth eating…
…and none of them included in the local Chicago definition of the unadorned term, “pie.”
That’s especially relevant in Chicago, where their deep-dish pizzas much more closely resemble your steak and ale pie than they do the topic of discussion, and Chicago pizzas are only secondarily considered pies. That is, nobody in Chicago would expect to see pizzas at a piefest and so would be even more confused by unfamiliar savory pies there.
Now, if you wanted to organize a “pies from around the planet” festival, a steak and ale pie would have a good chance at taking home an award, but that’s something different….
b&
Oh dear, you guys across the pond are missing an awful lot! One of the high points of going to home fixtures at Harlequins RFC is getting a home-made pie at Barnaby’s stall: steak and ale, steak and Stilton, chicken and ham, or butterbean for the veggies. Chips, mushy peas and gravy included. Bliss! Also helps to soak up the couple of pints of Old Speckled Hen one finds oneself consuming at the same time.
I quite like sweet pies too. Just not at rugby matches.
Oh, we’ve got savory pies here. Americans are pretty shameless when it comes to importing cuisine. Your post made me thing of the Cornish Pasty Co., a local chain of about three or four restaurants. Obviously, they serve pasties and not pies, but they’re damned good….
b&
As long as you don’t confuse them with the pasties with the long ā…
Heh…they’ve got signage and T-shirts and the like all over the place inside the restaurant just for that purpose.
b&
??
Stuff to the effect of, but phrased more cleverly, “Pronounce it, ‘pass-tee,’ unless you want people to think you’re a boob.”
Their Web site doesn’t have any of that stuff, but it does give a bit of history about the place:
http://www.cornishpastyco.com/
b&
LOL- and I don’t think you can get passties with fringe..
Thinking on it…I would be flabbergasted if not a single burlesque performer has ever used Cornish pasties as…well…pasties. It’s just such an obvious gag, and the routine would pretty much write itself.
b&
I’m trying to figure out the reasoning process behind determining what is and is not a pie now. The classification I was using labels a pie as filling in a pastry shell that has been baked in a dish. So the term refers to construction rather than filling.
The Chicago classification seems to classify based on filling, leading to some confusion.
In the States, lacking context, a pie is assumed to be a sweet dessert dish, some sort of filling baked in a crust, with or without a crust topping. Oh — and baked in a circular dish, usually 8″ – 12″ in diameter, with outward-sloping sides an inch or two high and a flat bottom.
We generally recognize pizzas and quiche and other similar variations on the theme as pies, but we wouldn’t refer to them as such. “I’d like a slice of pie” would mean you want dessert; if you wanted something non-dessert, you’d use the specific term: “I’d like a slice of quiche,” or, “I’d like a slice of pizza,” or even, “I’d like a slice of pizza pie.”
So…pie = sweet dessert; [modifier] + pie = what you’re used to.
b&
One can imagine many different ways of categorizing these food items.
The Ecological Pie Concept, for example, will look at which course of a meal the dish is served in. True pies appear in the delicate dessert ecosystem at the end of the meal.
Alternately, two dishes could be classified together if they can successfully breed. For example, strawberry pies and rhubarb pies are placed in the same category, since the intermediate forms are also viably delicious. Another example is the Shoofly/Pecan pie continuum. Attempts to combine meat and fruit pies, on the other hand, lead only to sterile and unappetizing disappointment. This is the Biological Pie Concept.
One might also look to the historical record of how recipes have descended, with modification, as the culinary environment has changed. Is baklava a pie? This is a question for filogenetics.
Finally, I’ll note that entirely new recipes can originate by endosymbiosis.
Very clever! I love “filogenetics!” 😀
Melton Mowbray!
Proof that there is great American cuisine too. Just that we call it cooking. 🙂
I should bring you a sample of my own favorite, Chocolate Brandy Alexander pie. Chocolate, marshmallow, whipped cream, Brandy, and creme de cacao in a chocolate cookie crust.
Which pies did you try? The banana cream one looks yummy. My mother makes that for Xmas each year but it has meringue on it.
O’m’golly ! Wouldn’t everyone wanting to help out the cause .just start off. as at least a $10.00 / four – slice contributor? That would be the easy part.
The hard thing’d be to stop … … with the next Hamilton and the next Hamilton and the next’s contributions!
Blue
Oh those look good!!
My favorite pie–French Silk.
Yes. You are correct. That is the king of pies. But it can be difficult to find a good one. I like the ones in which the chocolate part isn’t so much a pudding-y chocolate creme but more of a dense mousse.
Concur on all counts! Esp., alas, the difficulty of finding a good one!
Since I could not eat them all, then I would have none.
Not really. The red raspberry finalist please. It has the two undeniable features of a good fruit pie: a tender crust evidenced by nearby table crumbs and truly luscious fruit whose juice is barely contained by its gloriously red-stained rim. 🙂
I liked the sign – victory a la mode.
The banana cream and chocolate cream…
What a charity.
Oooh, had I been there, I’d be begging the vendors for half-slices so I could try almost every kind! It takes a lot of will power to walk away with just 4 slices, especially since the invention of refrigeration!
Ahhh, deliciousness overload! Wish I had been there. I have a real weakness for cream pies, and pecan pies, fruit pies, and…
Professor CCE, you are a man of great character and self-restraint to only get yourself 4 slices. 🙂
No coconut custard pie. Once again, the diner favorite is denied the respect it deserves.
I went searching for more pie photos from the event, and saw a familiar face in one of them! Looks like a great event 🙂
http://www.southsidepie.com/2015-photos.html
Ha ha, nice catch!
Of one is full, does one terminate at 3.141 ?
Does “Pihex” still exist on the internet? Yes. I was one of those 1,246 contributors.
“Therefore, the least significant known bit of Pi is 1 at position 1,000,000,000,000,060 (one quadrillion sixty) or 1015+60.”
A pretty small claim to fame – one 1246th of one quadrillionth.
Parsing fail : 10^15 + 60
Oh my. I may have to reconsider my philosophy. This could be proof of heaven. 😉
this must be where pies go when they die.
Hot Damn! How the hell could you choose …. just 5 slices? … How is that even possible?
Thank you for the pictures and report.
Well that’s just not fair, not fair at all.
(drools).
Say, that pear and cream cheese pie sounds like a great idea. I may have to try that combination.
let me know if you make it, vaal, and I’ll drop by;-)
mmmm! Very nice!
How appropriate that Pecan is uniquely American – “has the nuts all the way through”!!!
Well looking at those Pies has done my will power immense damage, they all looked extremely delicious, do they Export at all?
Any savory pies? I now have a hankerin’ for some mincemeat (w/venison) pie.
All this talk of pie fillings here, but as any true pie fan knows, it’s the crust that makes the pie.
Were there any vodka-based pie crusts in evidence? The trick of substituting alcohol for some of the water when making crusts has served me well; the gluten doesn’t develop as much and the dough becomes pliable without compromising the finished crust’s texture.
Exactly! Good fillings are easy, but a good crust is a different matter. You have to have a little magic in your fingers.
All I can say is I hope I can be in Chicago next year for this event. I’ve found it impossible to find decent pie in any restaurant. Good pie just can’t be mass produced.
Alessandra: I’m going to bake my Torta di Mele;
Gògo: Dear, why don’t you get the Calico Pie’s recipe?
(p.s. Gògo is the Calico young adult shecat who lives with me and Lùlu the All Black. She is waiting for The Calico Parade)