When Come Back (from time travel to the late 19th/early 20th Century) Bring Pie?

[bienville]

Did Americans use to eat a lot more pie?

In old movies it seems like pie was an expected and standard part of a meal. I’ve seen dozens of examples, the volume of which brought the question to mind, but I’m afraid I can only come up with two examples off the top of my head:

Modern Times
In the scene when Chaplin gets a new factory job, working with a partner repairing the old machines. At lunch break, Chaplin has to feed his partner who is stuck in one of the machines. He opens the lunch pail which is shown to contain some fried chicken, a thermos of coffee, a stalk of celery, a hard boiled egg, and a slice of pie. This was during the depression when I would have thought desserts would be thought of as extravagance.

Of course, the pie gets dropped on the man’s face and, in this example, may only have been included for the comedic pay off of pie-in-the-face. But this is only one of many examples I’ve seen, most of which make no comedic use of the pie.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
At the Ericsons’ restaurant, the most popular order is for “Steak, Beans, and Deep Dish Apple Pie”. That’s what everybody orders. Even Marshal Link Appleyard, who dines on credit- and whose mounting unpaid balance continually angers Mrs. Ericson- always asks for and always is served deep dish apple pie with his meal.

What strikes me most is how “automatic” it seemed to be for a slice of pie to round out the meal. As if the concept of “meal” in the public consciousness would not be complete without a slice of pie. It seemed tied to the cultural definition of a well rounded “complete meal”. I don’t know if it was pie, specifically, or a general idea that there should be a dessert to complete the meal- but each time I notice, it does tend to be pie.

It also kind of seems like all the ingredients that make us, in these days, think of pie as a dessert were ignored with the focus being on the presence of fruit- thus making it “good food” necessary to round out the meal.

So, is this just a movie phenomenon or was pie once expected as part of a meal?

[cornflakes]

@bienville

This was during the depression when I would have thought desserts would be thought of as extravagance.

Pie was an extravagance during the Depression. To give an example, my father never ate mustard as an adult because he mostly ate mustard sandwiches as a teen.

My WAG is that pie is the conventional dessert because it’s easier to make a pie from scratch (I could be wrong though.) Cake mixes became popular during the '50s. Also a slice of pie will fill you up faster and keep you full longer than a slice of cake

[NinetyWt]

This is what my Joy of Cooking (1997) says about fruit pies:

Pies came to America with the Pilgrims … <snip> … A hundred years ago, when pies were often eaten at breakfast as well as supper, many American housewives baked a dozen or more fruit pies every week…

Apparently, cream pies didn’t become widespread among the general population until the advent of modern refrigerators. So, old movies wouldn’t have shown pies other than fruit pies.

I also found this:

“As a favored dish of the English, pies were baked in America as soon as the early settlers set up housekeeping on dry land. Beyond mere preference, howevers, there was a practical reason for making pies, especially in the harsh and primitive conditions endured by the first colonists. A piecrust used less flour than bread and did not require anything as complicated as a brick oven for baking. More important, though, was how pies could stretch even the most meager provisions into sustaining a few more hungry mouths…No one, least of all the early settlers, would probably proclaim their early pies as masterpieces of culinary delight. The crusts were often heavy, composed of some form of rough flour mixed with suet.”
—Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew Smith editor [Oxford University Press:New York] 2004 (p. 272)

From here.

And this, mentioning the trend towards pie at every meal:

Later nineteenth-century diarists in rural New York, recording their work, noted routinely that on Saturdays they “baked bread and pies,” but also spent additional hours at the rolling pin and pastry board when fresh ingredients in quantity presented themselves. Now was born the great farm tradition of eating pie at each meal. Old timers in Vermont talked about one pie per person per day; and the mid-west earned a reputation as “the pie belt.” Every-where summer fruit pies vied with winter pumpkin and squash pies, and the angled-sided yellowware, agate, and tin pie pans dictated shape.

(bolding mine)

From here.

[aldiboronti]

The phrase “as American as apple pie” is no accident.

BTW we English still love our pies, both savoury and sweet.

[Harmonious_Discord]

People actually made their meals and mostly women cooked dinner. They made pies when the fruit was in season, and canned all summer. Food was a lot of work and women went by the phrase “The way to a mans heart is trough his stomach.” They also felt the need to marry. Times changed in the 70’s we had a recession and many mom’s went to work that that hadn’t worked outside the home in the 60’s. Being short on time and not making stuff from scratch for the last few decades has led to a decline in the quality of lunches that’s for sure. Almost every place I went with a stay at home mom as a kid, had fresh baked goods for me including pie. Today you’ll get a bag of Doritos, Hostess HoHos or some other snack you can buy at any gas station.

[brujaja]

mmmmmmm… pie!

I just popped in to say that I love pie. Piecrust-making is somewhat of a lost art among the general populace around here, and I’m really glad that I grew up in a pie-eating household so I know how.

I pick mounds of blackberries every year, and freeze them for pie. Peaches are so expensive now; but I still must have two or three peach pies every year.

Hint: Nutmeg is much better than cinnamon in apple pie.

You can make pie out of almost every fruit. Haven’t tried durian yet, though; nor “natal plums”. (anyone who knows much about them, please let me know!)

And yes, pie is an awesome breakfast.

That is all.

[NinetyWt]

@aldiboronti

The phrase “as American as apple pie” is no accident.

BTW we English still love our pies, both savoury and sweet.

Evidently the savoury pie begat the sweet pie. And, American pies have their roots in England.

[Tamex]

I don’t think pie is really, when you think about it, that expensive to make, especially if you are on a farm and are growing your own fruit and can get the lard from your own pig. As was mentioned above, a pie uses much less flour than a loaf of bread. As desserts go, certainly less of a luxury than, say, ice cream, which would require ice and refrigeration.

If you go to an antique store, you can find cabinets called “pie safes” for storing pies and keeping the flies off them. Anyone who needed a special cabinet for pie must have made and eaten a lot of pie!

My grandmother would always have several pies made for every family gathering, even though she was diabetic and could not eat them herself. She grew up on a farm in MN during the Depression and I’m sure that’s when she learned to make pie. The Depression taught people to use up everything. If you have fruit, make pie.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

Pie still makes a great breakfast. As a boy, in Wisconsin, nobody blinked at pie for breakfast.

[DesertDog]

@NinetyWt

Evidently the savoury pie begat the sweet pie. And, American pies have their roots in England.

No cite because I read this at like, ten years old, but a letter from one of Washington’s officers at Valley Forge mentioned how the general’s cook had eked out the one meat pie on the table by flanking it with two apple pies. He called them “pies made with apples” which would kind of hint that fruit pies were unusual at the time.

How common are fruit pies in Great Britain today? Or the rest of Europe?

[lobotomyboy63]

@Tamex

If you go to an antique store, you can find cabinets called “pie safes” for storing pies and keeping the flies off them. Anyone who needed a special cabinet for pie must have made and eaten a lot of pie!

My grandmother would always have several pies made for every family gathering, even though she was diabetic and could not eat them herself. She grew up on a farm in MN during the Depression and I’m sure that’s when she learned to make pie. The Depression taught people to use up everything. If you have fruit, make pie.

In college, I knew a Malaysian guy who was highly-respected among local cooks. Although it wasn’t his primary field, he taught classes at a culinary supply place.

He asked me one day, “Why do people have cake at weddings? Why not pie? You have all these wonderful berries and such.”

My best WAGs would be, in no particular order: 1) You’d need a lot of pies to serve a large guest list, 2) Pies don’t lend themselves to decoration as well, and 3) pies seem more countrified, less fancy, and weddings are usually formal occasions.

I like the term “pie safe.” I imagine a big, heavy safe with a combination lock. Thieves come into your home and find jewels, cash, and other valuables just lying around. But the important stuff is in the safe, and they ain’t getting THAT!

[Szlater]

Was the piecrust originally used to protect the meat/filling during cooking? I seem to remember reading that the crust was discarded from pies during the medieval period. Could be a load of rubbish though.

[Harmonious_Discord]

@Szlater

Was the piecrust originally used to protect the meat/filling during cooking? I seem to remember reading that the crust was discarded from pies during the medieval period. Could be a load of rubbish though.

I really doubt that it was common. Food took a lot of labor, and I can’t see them wasting the flour, when they ate all the parts of an animal because they needed to.

For people that need to know what a pie safe was for it kept vermin from the food. The bread box and the butter dish were for the same purpose only different food.

[lobotomyboy63]

@Szlater

Was the piecrust originally used to protect the meat/filling during cooking? I seem to remember reading that the crust was discarded from pies during the medieval period. Could be a load of rubbish though.

While surfing, my ignorance was fought by the powers that be. I’d heard the term “blind baking,” and, taking it at face, assumed it meant that you didn’t open the oven while something cooks. I assumed that meant that even small temperature variations could spoil the dish, so don’t even open the door for a quick peek.

It turns out that “blind baking” is another way of saying “pre-baking.”

Blind-baking

Blind-baking is necessary if the pie filling can not be baked as long as the crust requires, or if the filling of the pie would make the crust too soggy if added immediately.

Maybe the pie crust was discarded if they hadn’t figured this out. It seems to violate the “waste not want not” ethic, but perhaps…

[lobotomyboy63]

Missed the edit window. It occurs to me that the Chinese et al developed the wok because fuel was so precious and the wok’s design made the most of the heat source. Wasting food is bad, but so is wasting fuel. I wonder if that could have tipped the scale toward tossing the crust.

ETA: In “Angela’s Ashes” the boys sometimes have to go out looking for any scrap of fuel to keep warm. Maybe it’s not too farfetched.

[Szlater]

@Harmonious Discord

I really doubt that it was common. Food took a lot of labor, and I can’t see them wasting the flour, when they ate all the parts of an animal because they needed to.

For people that need to know what a pie safe was for it kept vermin from the food. The bread box and the butter dish were for the same purpose only different food.

After a-googling, I have a cite.

Here

@History of pies

The first pies, called “coffins” or “coffyns” were savory meat pies with the crusts or pastry being tall, straight-sided with sealed-on floors and lids. Open-crust pastry (not tops or lids) were known as “traps.” These pies held assorted meats and sauce components and were baked more like a modern casserole with no pan (the crust itself was the pan, its pastry tough and inedible).

[Tamex]

@lobotomyboy63

In college, I knew a Malaysian guy who was highly-respected among local cooks. Although it wasn’t his primary field, he taught classes at a culinary supply place.

He asked me one day, “Why do people have cake at weddings? Why not pie? You have all these wonderful berries and such.”

My best WAGs would be, in no particular order: 1) You’d need a lot of pies to serve a large guest list, 2) Pies don’t lend themselves to decoration as well, and 3) pies seem more countrified, less fancy, and weddings are usually formal occasions.

That, and pie was traditionally an everyday food. Cake, especially decorated cake, tends to be more of a celebratory thing. Though, now that pie is not such an everyday thing, my husband has sometimes requested a birthday pie instead of a birthday cake.

I like the term “pie safe.” I imagine a big, heavy safe with a combination lock. Thieves come into your home and find jewels, cash, and other valuables just lying around. But the important stuff is in the safe, and they ain’t getting THAT!

I don’t think pie safes were usually locked, but I suppose you could put a padlock on the door if you have a lot of hungry boys roaming around. Actually, this picture shows a pie safe with what looks like a keyhole, so maybe you could lock some of them.

[aruvqan]

@Tamex

That, and pie was traditionally an everyday food. Cake, especially decorated cake, tends to be more of a celebratory thing. Though, now that pie is not such an everyday thing, my husband has sometimes requested a birthday pie instead of a birthday cake.

I used to have boston cream pie which is more or less a cake as my birthday cake of choice. My brother used to have apple birthday pies though=)

[Kent_Clark]

I remember my grandparents’ farm – although by the time I came along, it wasn’t so much of a farm as a really big garden. They had all manner of fruit trees and berries. The stuff tended to be ready for picking in a short time frame, which meant my mother learned to can fruit very early.

To her, baking a pie was nothing. Mix up some flour and lard/shortening, roll it out, put it in a pan, bake long enough to make the crust firm, drain the canned fruit and dump it in, add some sugar and spice, top it off with a second hunk of crust and bake the whole thing. When she used fresh fruit, it took her longer to peel the fruit than to prepare the crust.

The crusts weren’t what I’d call light but they didn’t take long to prepare and certainly weren’t the kind of project making a cake from scratch was. Plus, cakes could fail (if you were my mother, cakes failed frequently) and pies were pretty simple in comparison.