Aunt Eunice would be proud
I have to confess that until a couple of weeks ago, no one had ever asked me for a recipe. I’m not proud of that admission, but it’s the truth. I’d love to be able to cook like my friend Dick Murray, the UH political scientist whose earthy, flavorful shrimp gumbo transports you back to his native Louisiana. Or like my friend and former boss Jeff Cohen, whose specialties include moist and crispy fried chicken, sautéed rainbow trout and pork tomatillo stew.
Unfortunately, my brothers and I were off doing something else when mom was toiling over a hot stove. She allowed us to leave home bereft. I’ve never really addressed my culinary ignorance.
So, you can imagine my pride when the recent column about early Texan Gail Borden, his Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk and MY lemon icebox pie prompted not only waves of nostalgia, but also requests for MY recipe. For the
first time in my life, I could be Aunt Eunice. In the extended Holley family, my Corsicana aunt was the one who fielded recipe requests. The cakes and pies she whipped up, based on Southern recipes she had learned from her mother-in-law when she was a 15-year-old newlywed, would put to shame the best of her hometown’s famed Collin Street Bakery.
Aunt Eunice had something of a sly, cantankerous streak. Let’s say you asked her for her brownie recipe, the rich, dark brownies with half pecans mashed into a swirl of chocolate frosting. Of course, she would share! With a modest tuck of the head, she would sit down at the kitchen table and write out the ingredients. You’d go home and follow her instructions precisely, but when yours came out of the oven, you’d discover they didn’t quite measure up. You’d also discover, eventually, that when Eunice shared a recipe, a little something just might be left out.
Here are some of the Eagle Brand recipes and reminiscences that came my way the last few weeks:
Paul Gregg, a retired Air Force senior master sergeant who lives in Humble, is one of those who asked for my recipe. (Thanks, Sarge.) “When I was a child (now 72, retired),” he wrote, “my mother used to make an icebox lemon pie that I dearly loved. When she would finish with the can of sweetened condensed milk, she would let me stick a finger into the can to lick the leftover sweetness! Over the years I have yearned to taste her pie again, but alas, she is gone and didn’t leave the recipe ....
“As I remember, she used rolled and crushed vanilla wafers that were infused with melted real butter for the crust, and whole wafers were set around the sides of the pie. She would whip sugared egg whites up to top the pie, sticking it in the oven to bring a brownish top to the egg whites. My saliva can flow when I remember the tartness and sweetness of that pie. What I wouldn’t give for Mother to return just for a day so she could make me that pie again!”
Paul said that now and then he’s encountered lemon icebox pies that come close, including those at House of Pies and at Cracker Barrel during the summer. “BUT Mama’s icebox lemon pie was the absolute best!”
Ben Campbell of Palestine recalled that his mother used Eagle Brand for her lemon icebox pies, while he and his wife of 51 years, Shirley Campbell, have included Eagle Brand in their hand-cranked homemade ice cream. There was only one problem, he said: “We didn't make it often enough.”
Ben advised pie aficionados in East Texas to try Oxbow Bakery in Palestine. “A lady named Becky makes some 'mean' pies and occasionally a great cake or two,” he wrote. “Her lemon ice box is really close to Mom's. However, I admit that my favorite ‘Becky pie’ is buttermilk. She has that one down pat. It will bring tears to your eyes!”
When Don Brown read about Gail Borden, it wasn’t pie that came to mind but the inventor’s second-most-famous concoction, meat biscuits. The West U resident reminded me that the military was relying on those chewy delicacies years later. “Marines called them John Wayne biscuits, because only John Wayne was tough enough to eat them!” he wrote. “Kind of like biting into roofing tile!
Yumm.”
Bill Martin, a retired sociology professor at Rice and author of the definitive biography of the Rev. Billy Graham, also looked beyond the pie. When he was a 17-year-old sophomore at Abilene Christian, he was invited to be senior pastor at a country Church of Christ in a tiny community called Mesquite. This was not the Dallas superb; this Mesquite was outside Gail, the tiny Borden County seat 115 miles west of Abilene. (Town and county both named for Gail Borden, of course.) “Actually, there was no community, just the church building sitting out in a field,” Bill recalled.
“The first time I preached,” he wrote, “an old man on the front row, an elder if they had elders, got up in the middle of my sermon and walked out. I was baffled and chagrined — until another elderly leader leaned forward and said quite audibly, ‘Don't worry. He's got piles.’”
Bill said he preached at the Mesquite church twice and was paid $10 both times. “I asked to meet with the men after church and said that $10 barely covered my gas, that the trip took two hours each way and that I thought a fair recompense would be $35. They paid me $35 and sent me a letter before the following Sunday, saying they had liked my preaching but had decided they didn't want to offer that much. I don't list my time at Mesquite on my CV.”
Back to pies. Sharon Dotson of Houston offered an Eagle Brand variation on the lemon ice box pie. Hers is a cherry creamcheese pie. “Try it,” she urged. “It’s wonderful.”
Ingredients
1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, softened
1 (14 oz.) can Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed
Milk
1/3 cup lemon juice 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (8 or 9-inch) prepared graham cracker or baked pie crust
1 (21 oz.) can cherry pie filling, chilled
Directions
Beat cream cheese until fluffy in large bowl. Gradually beat in sweetened condensed milk until smooth. Stir in lemon juice and vanilla.
Pour into crust; chill 4 hours or until set. Top with desired amount of cherry pie filling before serving.
And finally, just in time for July 4 social-distanced picnics, here’s my own humble offering:
Ingredients
1/2 pt. whipping cream 1 can Eagle Brand
2 eggs
1/2 cup lemon juice (3 or 4 lemons)
1 box vanilla wafers 1 tsp, grated lemon peel
Directions
Pour Eagle Brand into a mixing bowl and add the 1/2 cup lemon juice and the egg yolks (yellows), which have been slightly beaten. Line the bottom of a pie plate with crushed vanilla wafers and pour the Eagle Brand mixture onto the crushed vanilla wafers. Stand whole wafers around the edge of the pie plate.
Beat egg whites slightly, then add 2 or 3 tablespoons of sugar and one tablespoon cream of tartar. Beat until the mixture will stand in soft peaks. Spread over pie and sprinkle lemon peel over the top. Bake in oven about 10 minutes, or until peaks are slightly brown.
A warning, dear reader: I may have left something out, but I assure you, I wasn’t pulling an Aunt Eunice on you. It truly was an accident.