In Praise of Pie
Someday the NAS will see fit to give me a grant to fund my ground-breaking studies on the genetic component of baking, but until then I am just going to have to put it as a truth universally acknowledged that some people have the cake gene, and some people have the pie gene, and it’s the rare mutation that gives a person both.
There, there, calm down. Stop waving around your fingers and spluttering, “Pastry chefs!” As in most things, genetics is not destiny. You can overcome your genotype, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. With much patience, wittering, and the invaluable guidance of the splendidly anal Rose Levy Beranbaum, I can bake a decent, even an above average, cake, but there is no doubt in my mind that I am the possessor of the pie gene. Cake is hard. Pie is simple pleasure.
I know from whom I inherited this gene too. My mother. Now, I know she’s my mother, and I love her, and no one else’s cooking beats that of your mother, but I wish to state truthfully, without bias or reservation, that my mother makes some of the best dang pies I’ve ever eaten.
And I’ve eaten a lot of pies. I am the Diogenes of pie. I am looking for a honest pie in a deceitful world, and let me tell you, they are hard to find. The things that some people do in the name of pie make my knotted and combined locks do the fretful porpentine dance.
This is a great pity, because pie isn’t hard to make, and good pie is a national treasure. Oh I know other countries have pie, and some are even quite good, but the American pie is its own category of wonderfulness, and as we lead up to one of the most American of holidays, it seems only right that we celebrate the American pie.
Let the pie blogging begin!
