Blackberries and Pie Again
I picked wild blackberries this morning and made some of
them into a pie. It’s the beginning of the wild blackberry season in Madison.
Pie is a wonderful part of Americana. For me, it is the
all American dessert. When it’s good, it’s very, very good, and when it’s bad,
it’s horrid. I make very good pie. Many grocery stores make very bad pie.
Grocery store pies often have mass produced crusts that are not flaky and taste
like straw. Since I believe that pies are more than fillings stuffed between
soft cement crusts, I prefer to eat pies that I make.
My great aunt Lina used to make pie crust that was like
hard cement; she mixed it too much. Needless to say, she didn’t teach me how to
make pies. My mother did give a few pointers, although I actually never saw her
make a pie. She gave me an important bit of advice, which I have followed with
good results. She said not to mix the dough very much. My pie crust is flaky
and delicious. Thanks, Mother.
My blackberry pie recipe is derived from my big fat
falling-apart Better Homes & Gardens
New Cook Book, 1953 edition, for the crust, and adapted from a pie recipe
on the box of Minute Tapioca, for the filling. The tapioca box doesn’t say how
to make blackberry pie. It says how to make blueberry pie. Close enough. Since
my cooking interest is in how to cook for one or two people, I cut the tapioca
box recipe in half to make an eight-inch pie. If your kitchen does not have an
eight-inch pie plate, you are likely to find one at a thrift store. Ditto for
rolling pin.
Blackberry Pie
– one eight-inch pie
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2 cups fresh blackberries
½ cup sugar
2 tablespoons quick cooking tapioca
Mix fruit, tapioca and sugar in bowl. Let stand 15
minutes. Make an 8-inch pie crust while waiting. Use your recipe or the one
here.
1 ½ cups all purpose flour (of course I think it is bad
for us, but it makes good pie)
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup lard, butter or shortening; I use lard (I’ll have
more to say about this later)
4 tablespoons cold water (approximately)
Stir together the flour and salt. Cut in the lard or
other fat until pieces are the size of peas.
Sprinkle water, a tablespoon at a time, over the mixture. Gently mix
with fork until all is moistened. Don’t mix too much. Form the mixture into a
ball. Divide it in half. Flatten the first half slightly and roll it on a
lightly floured pastry cloth or floured sheet of waxed paper. Roll the dough with
light strokes, from center of the piece to the edges, so it makes a circle of
dough about the size of the pie plate. Put the dough into the pie dish. I fold
half over the other half, pick it up carefully and put it in the dish, and then
unfold it.
Put berry/tapioca mixture into the pie plate on the
bottom crust. Dot it with butter.
Moisten the peripheral edges of the bottom crust with water, all the way
around. Roll the second half of the crust dough into a circle that will fit
onto the pie plate. Seal the edges with fork or Fluting. I use a fork. Consult
your cookbook to flute edges. Cut vent holes in crust with fork. Bake the pie in a pre-heated oven at 400
degrees, for 45 or more minutes, until it is brown and done. If juices escape
and drip onto your oven floor during baking, resign yourself. It’s still a good
pie. You can put a cookie sheet under the pie dish to catch juices. I baked my
pie in the toaster oven, so that option was not available.
Comment about fat: fat is a big issue these days, but pie
requires it. I think lard makes wonderful crust, but good lard is hard to find.
The lard in the big box grocery stores is partly hydrogenated and not
recommended unless you don’t care about your health. I can buy pasture raised,
minimally processed local lard, frozen, at the Willy Street Coop (Madison and
Middleton), which is the only place I have seen it. Lard contains
cholesterol. I don’t believe that
cholesterol is bad for people, but that is another story. If good lard is not
available, I recommend butter. A third choice is vegetable shortening,
preferably not hydrogenated, although it does not lend flavor to the crust the
way lard and butter do. Purchased pie
crust is available in grocery stores, and it is all right, but in my opinion,
it lacks the character of homemade crust. I don’t know what extra ingredients
are in it, such as chemicals and flavorings.
