For Mom and Apple Pie

comfort in a flaky crust

Robert Lillegard

“In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”

Carl Sagan

Well, Mr. Sagan, what more can I say? You've taken pie as far as it has gone; as far as it CAN go. Pie—the child of the cosmos, the wonder of a thousand dancing suns! You take the things most familiar, and make them the things most strange. Pie is the subject of songs and the object of travelers' desires. Pie-in-the-sky, pie-eyed, a finger in every pie! It's the old madness: smooth pastry, ephemeral sweetness, and the cold richness of cream.

Pie is the life of the earth. It stems from the green days of summer, when hot wind ruffles every branch and the sun holds her stern gaze. It stems from the days when amber wheat grows thick and little green pumpkins kiss the ground. It stems, most of all, from the brisk days of harvest, when the trees are flaming gold and the sky a crystal lake and the cellar thick with crisp red apples. Pie is an ode to the season.

“Pie is the food of the heroic,” the editors of the New York Times once wrote almost a century ago. “No pie-eating people can ever be permanently vanquished.” Soldiers sent off to fight World War II said they were fighting “for mom and apple pie.” And as Edgar Howe said, “A boy doesn't have to go to war to be a hero, he can say he doesn't like pie when he sees there isn't enough to go around.”

Indeed, pie is a noble dish. Its roots go back to the lords of Greece, who wrapped meat in a simple pastry. Though the dough was dried out and inedible, the meat inside was tender and juicy. When Roman legions conquered the old cities, pie was their delicious spoil. Ancient cooks began to experiment with sweet dessert pies. As the empire grew, pie reached the tribute nations: the Pax Romana as Pax Pie.

Eventually, pie became a source of entertainment. Large pies were brought before kings, and when they were cut open, rabbits, frogs, or live birds would burst forth. (Four and twenty blackbirds…) When British Queen Henrietta Maria was just 15, she was presented with a large pie in Buckingham. The pie burst open to reveal an 18-inch tall man in a suit of armor, who would eventually become a member of the royal court. But it is perhaps the Duke of Burgundy who was served the most incredible pie: inside its grand crust were twenty-eight skilled musicians.

Even without musicians, pie has its own melody. There's the wet smack as apples are chopped, the flat, gentle slap of rolled dough. There's the harsh buzzing of the oven and the soft hiss of steam from flaky crusts. And finally, when the pie is on the table, there's the happy murmur of contentment. Meaty pecans dance with tangy molasses and a tingling pinch of cinnamon. Soft, heavy apples sit under warm crusts. Pie is warm, smooth, pumpkin, hearty-sweet mincemeat, the exuberant cream of raisins and rum. Its music is the music of home.

Beatnik Jack Kerouac dined on pie as he traveled the nation. Mark Twain missed it dearly on his trip to Europe. And foreign correspondent George Augustas Salas, that friend of Thackeray and Dickens, pined for pie throughout the globe. Russian blini, French crossiants, Indian Kheer he could have—but pie was what he wanted. “Men may come, and men may go,” Salas wrote, “but Pie goes on for ever.”

There is comfort in pie, and a certain laughing joy. For me, the best example comes from a church pie night, on a chill winter evening many years ago. In the cold, ragged night before Thanksgiving, families baked pies and brought them in. The bounty was incredible: dozens and dozens of hot, fresh pies, blackberry and cherry and pumpkin and cream.

We liked pie, and the children more so. At the final amen, they tumbled forward with a greedy, baying cry. Then the darting hands, the shrill shouts, the sticky faces! The best pies always went soonest. That year, I remember seeing several personal-sized pies, sealed little tarts for those who wanted a pie all to themselves. These, of course, went the quickest of all.

But in life, like in fairy tales, greed is its own reward. It happens that the little pies were beef–and–carrot pot pies, placed there by my friend Jake. Though we never saw delight turn to horror on those chubby little faces, we've been laughing ever since.

Joy, C.S. Lewis once wrote, is an acceleration of “the rhythm of celestial experience.” Surely, pie is part of that rhythm. Pie is is the fruit of the earth, warmed by the sun and fed by the rain. It inspires poetry, draws forth praise, sends men to war. It is ancient and new, warm and cold, sweet and hearty.

And that—to me—is a taste of the universe.