re: #140 ObserverArt

You know, I have never had a piece of shoo-fly pie. And I grew up in an area where there were many Amish/Mennonites.

My mother, a 100% German farm-girl, was a hell of a pie and cookie maker. But she never made them or pecan pie. I’m thinking they were just too sweet for her tastes. I think she did make all the others but her cream pies were to die for. Her fruit pies were pretty damn good, but she killed cream pies of all kinds.

My view of pies is skewed by growing up in orchard country with a father who worked for a fruit processing company. When I was a kid, fruit was cheaper than ‘glop’ (that combination of starch, sugar, and juice), so canned pie filling was actually damned good!

Later, Dad told me, as glop became cheaper, the company lowered the ‘fill weight’ (how much fruit mass/can) and by the time he retired, he said he was no longer comfortable recommending his company’s pie fillings.

But also, I grew up in an area full of Mennonites, Brethren, and even a few Amish, and we attended a Mennonite church, so I was exposed to a number of the old Mennonite recipes.