THE PIE LADY
One contributor has proudly earned that moniker after decades of trial and error making delicious pies!
Pie Lady” is a title I have proudly earned. It comes from years of frustration, trial and error. My pie-making began in Wales in the mid 1950s in cookery classes at school. The short-crust pastry recipe had half lard, half margarine and self-raising flour, the amounts of the ingredients have been lost in time. As we lived on a farm, there were times I was pressed into action to help my mother make pies for threshing crews; I also helped my aunt at these times.
My pie-making then took a hiatus for about 15 years. Fast forward to the mid1970s when my memory kicks into gear again. By this time, I had been in Canada since 1967. Now I was cooking for a husband and two young children. I was using the same recipe to make pastry, when my young son sensed my frustration as I was rolling out the dough and asked me what I was making, I said “flop pie!”
My mother-in-law sold goods from the Regal catalogue, so I bought a circular, zippered plastic device to help roll out pastry, only to experience more frustration.
Eventually, I received a recipe from my sister-in-law using all-purpose flour, lard, baking powder, salt and water. I was finally on my way to success—the pastry rolled out without falling apart. I froze the leftover pastry and, after I thawed and rolled it out, it was a dream come true. I was on my way to success.
The real test of proficiency came when I started making pies for the fall supper at the local Anglican church. We lived on a small farm and when the apple trees that my husband planted became productive, I used the apples in my pies.
We also planted saskatoon and raspberry bushes, an Evans cherry tree and rhubarb and strawberry plants. The same sisterin-law who gave me the pastry recipe also gave me a recipe for a saskatoon-rhubarb pie with a crumb topping— rather than a pastry top—making it a tasty alternative.
A friend also gave me a recipe
for a bumbleberry pie containing apples, rhubarb and raspberries—it also called for the only ingredient I didn’t grow, blueberries, which I bought. I used the crumb topping for these as well, this topping absorbs the juice as the pie cooks and bubbles to the top. My husband enjoyed picking huckleberries that he found in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains on his travels as a battery operator in the oilfield, so I began substituting the blueberries with huckleberries.
On our trips to Creston, B.C., I bought some tame blackberries, which I also used as a substitute for blueberries. While attending a festival in Richmond, B.C., we couldn’t resist picking the blackberries that were growing along the path between the RV park we were staying at and the festival venue. We froze some of the berries and brought them home, I also made applecrab and blackberry jelly, straining the juice off the boiled fruit—my granddaughters raved over that jelly!
When my granddaughters came to stay, we had a pie-making bee. They learned to roll out the pastry and we made as many as 15 pies at a time.
While the church no longer holds fall suppers, there are two bake sales a year for which I make six to eight pies. The funds help support the church, and missions at home and overseas. I made some Evans cherry and peach pies, but it seems they were not as popular as the bumbleberry and saskatoon-rhubarb pies! In spring, I also made fresh rhubarb crisp that sold well. It was at one of these sales that I was dubbed “The Pie Lady.”