Pie: the Ultimate Communication Tool

Sssshhh. Listen carefully. Pie is talking to you. What is it saying? Is it the last piece of peach pie calling to you from the kitchen? Perhaps. The siren-song of pie is impossible to ignore. Listen closer. Pie has more that it wants to say.

Pie is an amazing creative outlet: a place to experiment, explore, and perfect skills. You can tell a lot about a person by the pie they bake. And if you can’t bake a pie, you can paint it. Pie can let others know how you feel about them. If someone bakes you a pie, you can be fairly certain that they love you.

And if that weren’t enough - pie can also illustrate concepts. That’s right. I’m talking about the Pie Chart. From Wikipedia:

A pie chart (or a circle graph) is a circular chart divided into sectors, illustrating relative magnitudes or frequencies or percents. In a pie chart, the arc length of each sector (and consequently its central angle and area), is proportional to the quantity it represents. Together, the sectors create a full disk. It is named for its resemblance to a pie which has been sliced.

Blah, blah, blah, clinical language, blah, blah. Let’s take a look at the pie chart in action. For those of you who have been RickRolled – a pie chart can help you understand what just happened to you.

If you seek more song clarity in pie form (as well as lesser, more inferior charts), why not check out the song chart pool on flickr.

Pie tastes better on environmentally responsible plates

I hate Styrofoam. No, I seriously hate Styrofoam. At an event last summer, I was hot, I was parched, I needed some liquid libations. I approached the booth featuring hand squeezed lemonade, and discovered my only option was to drink it out of a Styrofoam cup. Despite my rapidly decreasing loveliness wilting in the heat and my approaching puffiness from dehydration, I declined the lemonade. I just can’t do the Styrofoam. That’s petroleum. Things just don’t taste good when they’re served on or in things that are bad for the environment. At least that’s my humble opinion. But you know the great thing about this whole blog post? We have options.

OPTIONS! If you’re having a picnic or a get-together or an event, you don’t have to go the bad-for-the-environment route. There are so many other ways to do right by the planet. With this in mind, our friends at Verterra have generously offered plates for us to use at the Portland Pie-Off. Yeah, Verterra! Why are they better than Styrofoam? Oh, let us count the ways….

Verterra plates are made from leaves. And they can biodegrade in less than 3 months. There’s a lot of other really great things to be said about them, and you can read about it here. And you can see their lovely products here. We’ll be using these at the Pie-Off.

But the really great thing? These plates are reusable before they are composted. If there is a community organization that would like these plates after the Pie-Off, just let us know and we’ll make arrangements for you to pick them up from the event and continue their life, serving good foods, hopefully as good as the pies are sure to be at the Pie-Off. And when they eventually are at the end of their lives, we’ll know they compost back into the earth. Doesn’t that pie taste even better now? Mmmmpie.

Special thanks to our friend GreenSmith on Twitter for making this sponsorship possible!

It's Pie in the Face Wednesday!

***Please note, The Pie-Off Commission as the officially designated group of the Portland Pie-Off does not condone, promote or otherwise approve the use of pie-in-the-face tactics or shenanigans and hereby declares the Portland Pie-Off as a pie-in-the-face free zone.*** However, it's always fun to watch other people get creamed.

Below is a classic video of homophobic actress and washed up Hollywood star Anita Bryant getting pied by gay rights activists. Politically Pied!

A Slice of Nostalgia

If pie isn’t the poster child for nostalgia, I don’t know what would be. Pie represents the very definition of nostalgia: a longing for the past, often in idealized form. Pie is about mom, and holidays, and socials, and comfort. My dad likes to tell a story about when he would take the train back and forth from college in St. Louis and home in Tacoma. He would have a big ol’ slice of apple pie in the dining car and back then the perfect compliment to apple pie was a slab of cheddar cheese. My dad always tells this story at Thanksgiving, as he cuts a slice of cheddar to go with his apple pie. Lots of people have romanticized stories about pie and I suspect that is a big part of why we love pie so much.

I love this photo for a lot of reasons. I am a big fan of the automat, although I have never actually been in one. To me it represents the anonymity of the big city. The automat was a place you could go, put a few coins in the vending slot and get a meal without dealing with wait staff or cashiers. Anonymous and efficient. But what is behind that sea of little vending windows? Pie, of course. Pie like mom used to make. A little slice of comfort to ease the workday troubles of the common man.

Portland used to have a fine establishment on NW 23rd called Quality Pie. QP was a great 50s style diner frequented by people from all walks of life. And I do mean ALL walks of life; high school kids, cops, drag queens, neighborhood folk and stoners. It was a great hang-out. My in-the-know friends took me there late one night when I was a very sheltered 19 year old just starting art school. I think they thought the clientèle would shock my small town sensibilities. I may have been small town, but I knew a great pie joint when I saw one. Small towns are all about great pie joints and the characters that inhabit them.


Big town or small town, one thing is universal - the comfort of pie. I think this bit that's a regular feature on Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion radio show sums it up:

It's at times like that, you want Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie. Yes, nothing gets the taste of humiliation out of your mouth like Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.

But one little thing can revive a guy,
And that is home-made rhubarb pie.
Serve it up, nice and hot.
Maybe things aren't as bad as you thought.

Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb,
Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.
Mama's little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb,
Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie.

(c) 1999 by Garrison Keillor

Faux Pie or Mock Pie?

One of the more serious discussions of the Official Pie Commission Summit was whether or not to allow "Faux", (aka Mock, or "fake") pie in the Pie-Off. After 3 seconds of serious debate we concluded that faux pie is not only perfectly acceptable, it even deserves a Pie-Off category all its own.


What's Faux Pie?
Unlike its high-falutin' cousins the galette, the tart and other fancy pastry crusted delectables, Pie comes from humble origins. For our pie-baking forbearers, pie was a way to use what was available at hand during the seasons and stretch expensive ingredients like butter, sugar and flour so that several hungry people at one table could all enjoy a slice.

As the age of industrialization, and America's love affair with all things packaged and quick-Mix took hold, the "use what you have on hand" pie tradition continued. Sometimes with some funny, yet tasty, results.

Sure to piss off pie purists, slow foodies, and other gourmets, we here at the Pie-Off love the faux pie. We love it for its slice of cheesy Americana and what is sure to be in certain households and church potlucks, long standing tradition. Faux Pie, we salute you!

I present for your inspection, the most well known, and probably the oldest of the faux pie family, "The Mock Apple Pie." Although attributed to an inventive cook in the late 1800s, it was the Ritz cracker people in the 1930s who really figured out they had a good thing on their hands and began to market the pie out of it. Who doesn't remember growing up staring at the Ritz box and wondering, "can you really make an apple pie out of Ritz crackers?"



Here is the recipe in all it's crackery buttery (or margarine induced if you wish) glory.

Yet mock apple pie is but one of the many other faux pie offerings out there.
There are several versions of Mock Pecan Pie. This one made with oats, while another is made with high fiber pinto beans!
Pinto beans are also the main ingredient in Mock Pumpkin Pie

Of course there are quick and easy candy bar pies and other no-bake cheaters delights, featuring that favorite dessert of yore, Jello Pudding-Mix!

Got any faux pie recipes of your own? A favorite faux pie memory? Feel free to share it in the comments below. See you at the Pie-Off!

Confused about Custard, Confounded by Cream

I've received several desperate sounding emails asking the following questions. Below is a typical example:

"Dear Pie Commission,

What's the difference between a Custard and a Cream Pie? Aren't pecan pies and pumpkin pies simply custard pies, so why the separate categories in the Pie-Off?

Signed,

A Confused Pie Lover"

Here are your answers:

Custards and Cream Pies are often, but not always, in the same cuisine family but it's the cooking techniques that make them different.

The main difference between cream and custard pies:
1. Custard pies both filling and crust are baked together.

2. Cream Pies use a pre-baked pie shell and the fillings are cooked separately then put into the finished shell, or in some cases use uncooked filling made with whipped cream, or using thickeners like gelatin in lieu of actual custard.

See, pretty simple. Except there are exceptions. Read on...

A custard is simply a preparation made with eggs, milk or cream and/or other liquids and heated until thickened. The cooking temperature and time, amount of eggs and other ingredients, will all dictate how thin or thick the cooked custard is. WiseGeek has a pretty good definition of custard. A custard may be simmered on top of the stove, baked or baked in a water-bath. Some custards have the addition of cornstarch, tapioca or gelatin as thickeners, but French cuisine codes are strict: Jello? Cornstarch? Sacre-Bleu! C'est nes pas une creme! (translation, "That's not custard!"). Don't mess with the French and their goddamn rigid food rules.

Anyway, some things in the custard family include flan, creme brulee, the Italian dessert known as zabaglione or the related French version dessert/sauce Sabayon. Puddings are custards, but not the British term "pudding", which simply refers to a type of steamed cake. Panna Cotta (or "cooked cream") is also a custard.

And speaking of Jello. Jello pudding mix is a custard and may be used in pies, it's just a bastardized processed food version that may require cooking, or in the case of Instant Jello Mix, no cooking is required at all. However, when used in pies, Jello pudding mix actually becomes a cream pie since it is usually put into a pre-baked pie shell. Confusing, isn't it.

Let's explore a bit further which should help explain...

Custard pie examples include the chess pie family, pumpkin, pecan (really just a chess pie with pecans), buttermilk pie, Kentucky Derby pie and shoo-fly pie. Key lime pie is a custard pie, but lemon meringue is not (see below). Many custard pies were quite popular in the days of yore but outside of South have now sadly fallen out of favor in mainstream American cooking. This is a shame since custard pies are very easy to make and are quite delicious!

Cream pies are filled with pre-cooked flavored custards (American term: pudding or pastry cream) with an endless variety of flavors including chocolate, vanilla, coconut, banana, lemon, and so on. Lemon meringue pie is actually a cream pie since the filling is cooked beforehand and put into a pre-baked shell, even though the end pie is quickly finished in a hot oven to cook the meringue. Other cream pies use uncooked fillings that are thickened by whipped cream, gelatin, or the like. To make things even more confusing, uncooked pies that contain no dairy, such as my favorite "unbaked blueberry pie", are still considered part of the the cream pie family. Go figure.

As for separate categories of pumpkin, pecan and custard pies in the Pie-off, pumpkin and pecan pies are so loved and iconic by pie makers that they deserve their own categories.

Regardless, I hope this helps explain the cream vs. custard pie questions. We here at the Portland Pie Commission look forward to trying your own versions at the Portland Pie-Off!

Happy Baking,

Lizzy

The Art of Pie

One of my all-time favorite painters is Wayne Thiebaud. Mr. Thiebaud's oeuvre (big word alert) includes a wide variety of subject matter, especially.... PIE.

"It started out just as a sort of crazy problem to set for myself to orchestrate abstract elements with the subject matter. As soon as I did that, as I say, I couldn't help but look at it and laugh, 'That certainly has to be the end of me as a serious painter--a slice of pie.' But I couldn't leave it alone...It just seemed to be the most genuine thing which I had done." - Wayne Thiebaud

I know I sound cliche here, but aren't these paintings delish?

Pies, Pies, Pies - 1961

Lemon Meringue Pie - 1964

Pie Counter -1963

Neapolitan Pie - 1991

Refrigerator Pies - 1962