Sweet Potato Sonker

In a brief scene in Les Blank's 1983 documentary Sprout Wings and Fly, on Surry County, North Carolina fiddler Tommy Jarrell, Jarrell's girlfriend can be seen pulling two steaming sonkers from the oven. It only captures the camera's attention for a few seconds, and you'd miss it if you weren't looknig for it, but it's a big moment for the sonker, an obscure dessert native to two counties of North Carolina and scarcely known to those without connections to the area. That cinematic appearance also encapsulates why I find the sonker so compelling-- not only is the dish inherently intertwined with a specific place, that place also bears its on particular musical tradition; this scene on film twines the three.

As I wrote in a 2012 post featuring a Peach Sonker, a sonker lies somewhere on the spectrum between a deep-dish pie and a cobbler, with a layer of pastry on the bottom, the sides, and or the middle, and generally sporting a lattice top crust. There are numerous varations on this though-- some recipes that lean towards a pandowdy, bearing dumpling that are then covered with the filling. A sonker can be made with any fruit, and there are many that grow well in Surry and Wilkes counties, but peach and sweet potato are favorites. An identifying quality of a sonker is the milk dip, a boiled, sweetened sauce that is partially poured over the crust and filling near the end of baking, with the remainder served on the side as a topping.



I first heard of a sonker in the pages of Nancie McDermott's essential cookbook Southern Pies. When I happened upon it, I had just been to Surry County for the Mt. Airy Fiddler's Convention, capital of the Round Peak style of old-time fiddling. At the time, the only other thing I knew about Mt. Airy was that it was the model for Andy Griffith's Mayberry. If I had made my trip four months later however, I may have swapped the music festival for the annual Sonker Festival, celebrated the first weekend of October. But alas, I made my own introduction, falling in love with Nancie's Peach Sonker recipe and vowing to incorporate it into my regular dessert repertoire.

A few year later, April McGreger's sweet potato sonker recipe in the pages of her Savor the South cookbook reminded me of my sonker love, and I made her version on various occasions. Then last year, my friend Ronni Lundy wrote me, asking if I might create a sweet potato sonker using sorghum, both for her upcoming book, and a spring party at Big Switch Farm in Egypt, Kentucky. Initially Ronni and I were thinking buttermilk for the milk dip, though we were concerned it would curdle during boiling, so we stuck with whole milk.

That book of Ronni's, Victuals: An Appalachian Journey with Recipes, came out a few months ago, and is a master work, illuminating the foodways of the region in story, history, photos, and yes, recipes. Ronni focuses particularly on the foods she grew up eating, and the young (and youngish) Appalachian chefs, home cooks, and farmers who are creatively contributing to the evolution of those food and agricultural traditions of the mountain south. That party at Big Switch, featured in "Appalachian Spring," the last chapter of the book, convened friends spread across the region and beyond (I was still living in D.C. at the time), to christen a new season on the farm, play fiddle tunes, and offer our take on the foods of the season and region. There was Anna's swoon-worthy "Appalachian Spring" cocktail, Lora's Redbud Caper Deviled Eggs, Sumac Oil Flatbread with Country Ham and Pickled Ramps, Fresh Greens with Sorghum Vinegar, a Simple Rhubarb Tart, and more.

In the book, and the party, this Sweet Potato Sonker had a moment. Like the one in Blank's documentary, it's a bit role, but an important one, embedding the dish in a place, to music, to a gathering embued with meaning for those there, and those witnessing. I'm so compelled by the sonker because of this specificity-- how an unusual dessert with a funny name resists a severing from tradition, demands a story, a history. Of course, you could decontextualize it-- that type of extraction is far too familiar in Appalachia-- but then something would be lost, a crucial element of it gone; it probably wouldn't taste as good.

Sweet Potato Sonker 
Adapted from April McGreger's version, and featured in Ronni Lundy's Victuals

Ingredients
Nothing in the House pie crust, doubled
8 Tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing the baking dish
1/2 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
6 medium (about 3 pounds) sweet potatoes, peeled
1-2 teaspoons salt, depending on your preference
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup sorghum syrup
3 cups whole milk
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
1. 1. Prepare doubled Nothing in the House pie crust as per the directions. Divide the dough into two balls and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

2. Butter and lightly flour a 13x9 inch baking dish (or a dish with an equivalent capacity and at least 2-inches deep). On a floured surface, roll out half of the chilled dough into a large rectangle that will cover the bottom and sides of the baking dish. Transfer the rolled-out dough to the prepared baking dish, and press it down gently to line the dish and form the bottom crust. Place the dish in the fridge to chill.

3. Put the whole peeled sweet potatoes in a large pot, add cold water to cover, and add the salt. Place the pot over medium heat, cover, and bring to a boil. Then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are fork-tender, about 25 minutes.

4. Use a large slotted spoon to transfer the cooked potatoes to a cutting board to cool. Measure out and  reserve 1 1/2 cups of the cooking liquid to use later. Slice the cooled sweet potatoes into rounds, making them as thin as possible without breaking them.

5. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Remove the dough-lined pan from the fridge and layer the sliced sweet potatoes on top of the crust. In a medium bowl, combine 1 cup of the sugar, the sorghum, 1/3 cup of the flour, the butter, and the 1 1/2 cups reserved cooking liquid. Mix well and pour over the sweet potatoes.

6. Roll out the rest of the dough into a rectangle about the size of the baking pan. Cut into strips about 1/2-inch wide and form a lattice crust on top of the sweet potatoes.

7. Bake for about 40 minutes, until the crust is golden brown (the sonker will not be fully baked at this point).

8. While the sonker is baking, prepare the milk dip: Whisk 1/2 cup of the milk with the cornstarch in a medium saucepan, making sure all the cornstarch is dissolved. Add the remaining 2 1/2 cups milk and the remaining 1/2 cup sugar. Set the pan over medium-high heat and let it come to a boil. Let boil for 1 minute to thicken. Then remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla.

9. When the sonker has cooked for 40 minutes. Pour 2 cups of the prepared milk dip over the entire surface. Return the sonker to the oven and bake for 15 minutes more or until it is caramelized around the edges and brown on top. Remove the dish from the oven and let it cool for at least 20 minutes before serving; the milk will continue to be absorbed and thicken.

10. Serve the sonker just warm, with the remaining milk dip on the side for drizzling.

For more of the recipes of this gathering, and for a crucial, deep narrative on the foods of the region, told by one of its best storytellers and champions, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Victuals. Beyond it's inevitable place in the cannon, it's also an accessible resource for daily cooking-- many of the recipes come straight from Ronni's family, and their East Kentucky homeplace and are made from ingredients that are staples in most pantries.

Related recipes:

Sorghum's Savor Peach-Sorghum Pandowdy with Cornmeal Biscuits

Surry County Peach Sonker with Dip

Sweet Potato Pie with Cornmeal Crust

Sweet Potato Speculoos Pie

Sorghum's Savor Peach-Sorghum Pandowdy with Cornmeal Biscuits

I was first introduced to the wonderful Ronni Lundy in 2010, when she asked my friend Lora and me to contribute a piece on Pi(e) Day to her online food magazine Zenchilada (if you're not familiar with Ronni's books, editorial work, and contributions to the Southern Foodways Alliance, school yourself!). But I didn't actually meet her in person until this May, when, covered in flour, we whirled about the Jackson County, Kentucky community kitchen, jabbering and singing Dwight Yoakam songs as we made deviled eggs, sweet potato sonker, rhubarb tarts, cake, cocktails, and more for a farm party and feature in her upcoming book on Appalachian foodways. 

We instantly connected-- so much so that when I realized that I'd remembered my Kitchen-Aid mixer but entirely forgot the attachments, she asked me if I was sure I wasn't her long-lost child. I learned a lot from Ronni from just those few hours in the kitchen, but she's been a teacher and inspiration ever since that first e-introduction. One of the biggest lessons I've gleaned from her is through her dedication to the sweet, complex syrup beloved in the Appalachian South-- sorghum.

Ronni champions the ingredient in many forums, but she published a book on the stuff, Sorghum's Savor, earlier this year. It's part reference-part cookbook, with personal essays and historical background, testimonies from chefs and favorite folk musicians (Jean Ritchie, namely) and recipes from Ronni and other notables like Edward Lee, Travis Milton, Nancie McDermott, Sean Brock, John Fleer, and Anna Bogle. It's full of information and wit and appetite-inspiring recipes-- the type of cookbook that you want to read cover to cover.

If I lost you on "sorghum," I suggest you allow yourself the full introduction via Ronni's book and a few jars of the stuff, but here's what you need to know: Sorghum is a grass that resembles corn and similarly can be processed to produce grain. Sweet sorghum varieties, however, can be crushed and processed to produce a molasses-like syrup. In the mountain South and parts of the Midwest, where it's been grown for sweetener since 1850, sorghum syrup is often referred to as "molasses," "sorghum molassses" or by some very old-timers, "sugar cane." If an Appalachian or Midwestern rural recipe from that era calls for "molasses" it's likely that sorghum syrup was what was actually used, as it was readily available and affordable for farm and mountain families.

Though in mainstream contexts, sorghum fell out of favor with the boom of the industrial food system, it has persisted in mountain communities and is now making a comeback with increased interest in traditional, regional foodways. It's a dream ingredient-- sweet but not saccharine nor as bitter as molasses, with a complex savory flavor that varies depending on provenance and process-- a distinct terroir.

I've been baking with it for a while now, and was beyond delighted when Ronni asked me to contribute a dessert to Sorghum's Savor. I liked the idea of doing a pandowdy--essentially a cobbler differentiated by the use of "molasses" as a sweetener and the spooning of filling over the biscuits at the end of the baking time. Fresh peaches and cornmeal biscuits complete the trifecta with sorghum for a hearty summer dessert, which Ronni calls, "Emily's Howdy Pandowdy with Cornmeal Biscuit Top." I recommend enjoying it with a big scoop of homemade vanilla custard. 

Peach-Sorghum Pandowdy with Cornmeal Biscuits

Appears as "Emily's Howdy Dowdy Pandowdy with Cornmeal Biscuit Top" in Ronni Lundy's Sorghum's Savor

Ingredients
For the cornmeal biscuit top:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornmeal (I use Wholegrain Kentucky Heirloom Cornmeal)
1 Tablespoon white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup heavy cream or buttermilk
Turbinado sugar, for dusting

For the filling:
6 cups peaches, cut into 1/4 to 1/2-inch wedges
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sorghum syrup
1/4 teaspoon fresh ginger, zested and peeled
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions
1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt. With a knife and fork or pastry cutter, cut in the butter until mixture resembles the consistency of cornmeal and peas. Add cream and stir gently to combine.

2. Form dough into a ball and cover with plastic wrap. Store in the fridge for at least 20 minutes while you prepare the filling.

3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly grease and flour the inside of a 9-inch cast-iron skillet, or if that is unavailable, a deep casserole dish of similar size.

4. In a medium bowl, combine peaches, lemon juice, flour, and sorghum. Stir in the ginger as well as the salt. Pour filling into the prepared skillet. Cover top with foil and bake for 25 minutes.

5. While filling is baking, roll out chilled biscuit dough on a clean, floured surface into a 9-to-10-inch circle. Cut 6 to 8 rounds with a biscuit cutter and set aside.

6. Once filling has baked, remove from oven, and arrange cut biscuits evenly over the filling. Sprinkle with Turbinado sugar. Return to the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes more, until biscuit dough is light golden and filling is bubbling.

7. Remove from the oven and spoon some of the steaming filling over the biscuit top (this little move is a defining characteristic of a pandowdy, along with the use of molasses or sorghum in the filling!). Return to the oven to bake for 5-10 minutes more. Remove from oven and let cool. Serve slightly warm with a scoop of homemade vanilla custard.

Thanks to Food52 for featuring this post in 8 Food Blog Links We Love!

Related recipes:
Apple-Raspberry Pandowdy
Black Walnut Pie
Peach-Blackberry Cobbler
Surry County Peach Sonker with Dip

Pea & Corn Cookies

Inspiration for these cookies come from a a few different sources. In the spring of last year I wrote a series for the Southern Foodways Alliance on southern women pastry chefs. One of the first chefs I interviewed was Christina Tosi, known for her whimsical sugary creations at Momofuku Milk Bar. I was familiar with her crack pie and cereal milk soft serve, but didn't realize she was a southern gal. She said, "to me, Southern food is all about heart, flavor, nurture, resourcefulness, history, and roots." That sentiment is embodied in her Corn Cookies, which she called the "sleeper" hit of the Milk Bar, but  that has become a personal favorite.

I've experimented with a few variations of the cookie. This summer when I was in Kentucky, I came across this wholegrain heirloom cornmeal, produced by Salamander Springs Farm. It's from a version of Daymon Morgan's Kentucky Butcher Corn, which produces red, blue, purple, orange, and white kernels. As a result, the cornmeal is variegated, with a purplish hue, and let me tell you it bakes like a DREAM. The cornbread I made from it was the best I've ever made, light and fine (and I don't think it's just because I was using Ronni Lundy's great recipe).

I tried the cornmeal in Tosi's Corn Cookies, and it's magic. I just pulse the cornmeal in the food processor so that the texture becomes finer, and then I use it in place of the corn flour. It results in a little it of a grainier & less golden cookie than the Momofuku original, but I don't mind a bit.

So the corn cookie is one thing, but a PEA cookie, you might ask? I know, I know--it's a little weird. But hear me out. Back in October, some friends from out of town were visiting and having heard me and others (like Bon Appetit) rave about Rose's Luxury, they were itching to go. We waited in line the requisite 1.5 hours (really not that bad) on Saturday evening and sat down in the first seating. As you might expect, the entire dinner was fabulous with such an air of comfort and pleasantness and yes, a little bit o' luxury, but really did it for me was in the final blow by way of THE PEA CAKE. When we asked what it was, our server told us it was a yellow cake with peas in it (we imagined peas mixed in throughout, like chocolate in a chocolate chip cookie), but when it came out, it was bright green, served with a mint curd, pea shoots, borage, and candied pistachios. It tasted like SPRING and literally sent shivers down my spine.

Ever since then, I've been wanting to put peas in my sweet baked goods. I found a similar green pea cake recipe. But I got to thinking...would a pea cookie work? After I confirmed my hunch that green pea flour is actually "a thing." I ordered some from Bob's Red Mill, along with some freeze-dried peas, and gave it a go. The result is maybe not on a Rose's Luxury level (not much is), but these Pea Cookies are a soft and sweet, not to mention unusually fresh-tasting and brilliantly colored little tea treat. As a childhood pea-hater, I wish I'd been offered these as an option.

Pea & Corn Cookies
Adapted from Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar

(Recipe given for Pea Cookies, Corn Cookie variation in parenthesis or here)

Ingredients
2 sticks butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 egg
1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup Bob's Red Mill green pea flour (for corn cookies use corn flour or fine ground cornmeal)
2/3 cup freeze dried pea powder (to make, pulverize freeze dried peas-- or corn for corn cookies-- like "Just Peas" from the Just Tomatoes brand, in a blender)
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions
1. Combine the butter and sugar in the bowl of a standard mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and cream together on medium-high for 2-3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the egg, and beat for 7-8 minutes.

2. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour, green pea flour (or corn flour for corn cookies), pea powder (or corn powder), baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix just until the dough comes together, no longer than 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

3. Using a 2 3/4oz. ice cream scoop or a 1/3 cup measure, portion out the dough on a parchment-lined sheet pan. Pat the tops of the cookie domes flat (I used the bottom of a ball jar for this). Wrap the sheet pan tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to 1 week. Do not bake the cookies at room temperature--they will not bake properly.

4. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Arrange the chilled dough a minimum of 4-inches apart on a parchment or Silpat-lined sheet pan. Bake for 15 minutes. The cookies will puff, crackle, and spread. They should be a little brown on the edges but still bright green (or yellow) in the center-- give them an extra minute if not.

5. Cool the cookies completely on sheet pans before transferring to a plate or airtight container for storage.  At room temp, they will keep fresh for 5 days; in the freezer they will keep for 1 month.

Related recipes:
Lemon-Lavender Meringue Pie Cookies
Sweet Corn Custard Pie with Tomato Jam

As featured on Food52

The First Pizza Party at Big Switch Farm

This guest post from my dear friend Lora Smith takes us back to high summer in Southeastern Kentucky, and the first pizza party at Big Switch Farm--the first of many, I expect. Some of our pizzas were summer-seasonal, but pizza is for all seasons. Now from Lora...

"The land belongs to the future, Carl; that's the way it seems to me. How many of the names on the county clerk's plat will be there in fifty years? I might as well try to will the sunset over there to my brother's children. We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it for a little while."

-- Willa Cather, O Pioneers!

When I met my husband we were both working on sustainable development efforts in Kentucky-- Joe with a farm organization that supports small family farmers and me for a grassroots organization dedicated to social and environmental justice. Both of us were also dealing with the paradox that while we worked on issues of sustainability, our lives were anything but sustainable. As we explored ideas of the future we wanted to create together, we returned again and again to a desire to become landowners, to farm at a small scale, and raise a family near friends and family in the mountains of Southeastern Kentucky.

Joe and I found Big Switch Farm the year we were married. Its previous owners were a state-recognized Native American tribe who were using the property as a gathering place to host dances and celebrations four times a year. Before that it had been a hunting property, and many years before that a country road dotted with small homesteads ran through the middle of the acreage. We find remnants of the farm's past everywhere on the land: the foundation of old houses, empty shotgun shells and makeshift targets, sticks tied to fabric in the color of the four directions. Big Switch has always been a gathering place and we intend to keep it that way.

A small group of friends joined us for our first camp out and party on the farm this summer. Joe and I recently purchased a small mobile wood-fired oven and couldn't think of a better way to test it out. Many of our friends also happen to be talented chefs, bakers, and home cooks. We even had a pizza ringer in our friend Brett who spent his teenage years slinging dough at Papa John's. It showed in his perfectly round crusts that made our oblong and misshapen ones seem less "rustic" and more, well, amateur. Everyone brought ingredients to pitch in and each person made their own pizza to share with the group with "ooohs!" and "ahhhs!" erupting every time a new one was pulled from the oven. Prosciutto, salami, sausage, green onions, lambsquarters, garlic scapes, sundried tomatoes, brisket, mozzarella, homemade tomato sauce... there were no losers in the bunch. We even used pizza dough to make a blackberry galette for dessert and our friend Anna whipped up a breakfast pizza with leftover ingredients the next morning.

Along with ingredients, everyone arrived with something to offer-- gifts of food and drink, fiddle tunes, laughter-- and pitched in to create our first gathering on the farm. Here's to many more pizza parties to come while Big Switch belongs to us-- for a little while.

Breakfast Pizza with Sausage, Greens, and Fried Eggs aka "The Dwight Yolkum"
Inspiration from Anna Bogle

Makes 2 breakfast pizzas

Ingredients
Peter Reinhart's Napoletana Pizza Dough, halved
1 bunch kale
Small bunch lambsquarters (you can stick to kale if you prefer)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 red onion, finely diced in thin rings
8 ounces breakfast sausage (Anna used Murray's smoked sausage + Berea College breakfast links)
8 ounces parmesan, cut into thin slices
8 large eggs
Olive oil for drizzling
Cornmeal for dusting

Directions
1. Prepare half of Peter Reinhart's Napoletana Pizza Dough the night before making the pizza. Follow Peter's instructions, though rather than forming into 6 balls, form into 2 large balls of dough. 2 hours before making the pizza, follow the steps for letting the dough rest on a counter dusted with flour and sprayed with olive oil.

2. At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, preheat the oven as high as it will go and place a baking stone on either the bottom of the oven (gas or wood-fired oven) or on a rack in the lower third of the oven. If you don't have a stone, you can use the back of a baking pan, but don't preheat it.

3. Meanwhile, prepare the filling. In a medium skillet, cook the sausage until cooked through. Transfer to a plate to drain and let cool, then cut into small chunks.

4. Using the same skillet, sautée garlic and onion in sausage grease until translucent. Add the kale and lambsquarters with a little bit of water and cook until the greens are cooked down and tender.

5. Shape and stretch one of the balls of dough into a pizza of at least a 12-inch diameter and place on a peel or on your baking sheet, dusted with cornmeal. Sprinkle half of the sausage and sautéed greens on the pizza, then arrange parmesan slices on top. Drizzle entire pizza with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt, if desired. If you're using a wood-fired oven or an oven that gets very hot, crack 4 eggs on the pizza and place in the oven. If you're using a conventional oven that can only reach 500-550 degrees F, wait to crack the eggs until the end of the baking time. In a high-heat or wood-fired oven, the pizza should bake in 5-9 minutes. In a conventional oven, this will take about twice as long. If using a conventional oven, check at 10-15 minutes, and when crust is beginning to brown and bubble and cheese is melting, crack 4 eggs on top of pizza, and bake an additional 5 minutes.

6. Once crust is golden brown, cheese is melted, and eggs are cooked through, remove pizza from oven and let cool. Serve slightly warm. Repeat with remaining dough and ingredients. Enjoy!

Follow Big Switch Farm on Instagram here.

Related recipe:
Ham, Gruyère & Caramelized Onion Galette with Fried Egg

"Old Fashioned" Peach Blackberry Pie for The Joy of Cooking

The Joy of Cooking was one of the first cookbooks I learned to bake from growing up, so I was thrilled and rather honored when Megan Scott, 4th generation writer and baker in the Joy family, asked me to write a guest post for The Joy of Cooking blog.

Finding myself in Kentucky for the month of July, living in a house surrounded by blackberry bushes, I worked up this "Old Fashioned" (as in bourbon & bitters) Peach Blackberry Pie. To accompany the recipe, I wrote a little about the connection between pie and place, and the ways we ground ourselves in new environments.

You can find it all on The Joy blog here, and stay tuned next week, when Megan will share a guest post and recipe with Nothing in the House.

Related recipes:
Peach-Blackberry Cobbler
Peach-Pecan Pie
Peach Pie with a Sweet Basil Glaze

Green Tomato Pie

"The pie connoisseurs who have been enumerating and classifying the different brands of pie in print of late have been guilty of a grievous omission in leaving out green tomato pie. Like sweet potato pie, the green tomato articled is indigenous to the southern section of the great pie belt, but there it is in high favor. There is no geographical reason why it should not become equally popular up North. The tomatoes distinguishing it are sliced and stewed in sugar in a way very taking to the sweet tooth, but they must first of all be green. Pie is still hopelessly unfashionable, but now that the doctors have come out with a denial that it is unhealthy, it bids fair to be in for a new lease of popularity, in which green tomato pie deserves to be included."

From "Don't Forget Green Tomato Pie," Washington Post, March 12, 1901 (p. 6)



Over one hundred years later and Green Tomato Pie may still be in need of this rallying cry. Fitting squarely in the family of "nothing in the house" or desperation pies, with apple pie-like seasoning, Green Tomato Pie is a kissing cousin to the mock apple, mincemeat, and funeral pie varieties. But it is decidedly its own unique entity. Green Tomato Pie, made from unripe tomatoes, is earthy and masculine, teetering on that savory-sweet divide, erring just towards the dessert side of things. It's one of those pies you don't see often on restaurant menus, and when you do you know you're somewhere special. It's more likely that when you encounter it, it'll be homemade, offered at an Amish market, a potluck, or in a "pie belt" kitchen in late summer, when the tomato vines are hanging heavy, gardens and kitchen counters overflowing with fruit. 

Appearing in cookbooks in the late 1800s, Green Tomato Pie seems to always have had a rural identity, with its footing in the Midwest and the South. Some claim it as an Amish or Mennonite recipe, but it has other lineages that may or may not overlap, African-American and prairie among them.


This version is an amalgam of a few different recipes I've come across, including Travis Milton's, the chef at Richmond, Virginia's Comfort and the man behind the Appalachian Food Summit's green tomato hand pies, of which I've heard such rave reviews. I also incorporated some ingredients from Nancie McDermott's Green Tomato Pie, as well as the Mennonite recipe my dad uses, which includes apples and raisins. 

This recipe really showcases the sorghum and molasses flavor--if you're not a fan of those ingredients, this may not be the pie for you (or you can opt to substitute with brown sugar or maple syrup). The sorghum does make it a little runny, which I don't mind, but if that's a pet peeve of yours, that might be another reason for a sugar substitution or adding a little additional thickener. This would also be a great pie to bake in a skillet, as Travis does, and serve with buttermilk ice cream and a glass of rye.

Green Tomato Pie

Inspired by a few recipes including Nancie McDermott's and Travis Milton's

Ingredients
Nothing in the House pie crust
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup sorghum or molasses (I used sorghum)
4 Tblsp. cornstarch or all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 cups (about 3 1/2 lbs) green tomatoes, thinly sliced into wedges (make sure these are unripe tomatoes, not ripe green heirloom tomatoes!)
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and cut into small chunks
2 Tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice or 1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Egg wash (1 large egg whisked with 1 Tablespoon whole milk or heavy cream)
Turbinado sugar, for dusting

Directions
1. Prepare Nothing in the House pie crust as per the directions. After chilling the dough for at least 1 hour, roll out half of the crust and fit into a 9-inch greased and floured pie pan or a greased 9-inch skillet. Place pan and unrolled crust back into the fridge while you prepare the filling.

2. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. In a medium bowl, combine the sugars, sorghum or molasses, thickener, spices, salt, and sliced green tomatoes, stirring everything together with a wooden spoon until  tomatoes are coated and everything is well-combined.

3. Pour the filling into the pie crust and arrange them so that they're mounded slightly in the center. Scatter the butter pieces over the filling and sprinkle on the lemon juice or vinegar.

4. Roll out the remaining pie crust and cut and arrange into a lattice or crust design of your choice. Seal and crimp edges. Brush crust with egg wash and sprinkle with Turbinado sugar.

5. Bake pie on a baking sheet (this is to catch any drips) and bake for 10 minutes at 425 degrees F. Lower heat to 350 degrees F and bake 40-50 minutes more, until the crust is golden brown and the juices are bubbling throughout. Once baked, let cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.



Related recipes: Apple Fried Pies
Cracker Pie aka Mock Apple Pie
Funeral Pie
Grandma Good's Green Tomato Pie
Savory Heirloom Tomato-Ricotta Galette

Sweet Cherry Pie with Cornmeal Streusel

After emerging from the north woods and a brief stint back in D.C. to trade my spring sweaters for summer sun dresses, I headed to Berea, Kentucky, where I'm living for the month of July. I'm here on a research fellowship with the Berea College Appalachian Sound Archives, studying the collection of East Kentucky banjo player, songwriter, hotel owner, postmaster, sheriff, and mother of six, Nora E. Carpenter.

As I'm in the process process of constructing a picture of who Nora Carpenter was, I'm also getting my bearings in this place--learning the trails and best blackberry picking spots around the house where I'm staying, finding the best rural ice cream stands and swimming holes, checking out the bars and donut shops and record stores in nearby cities, and trying to make friends--making sure that I keep my head just enough out of the archives.

Berea is a unique place, with its concentration of local artisans and craftspeople, not to mention its number of famous local residents including bell hooks and Jean Ritchie. But in many ways, Berea College seems to be the life pulse of the town, with its radical history of race and gender equality, belief in community and cultural diversity, and emphasis on integration of intellectual and manual labor.

Though things are a little quiet on campus now, with school out of session, I've been taking advantage of some of the school's resources, in particular the Berea College Farm. The farm is one of the oldest student-operated educational farms in the country, and is abundant with over 500 acres of cattle, hogs, chickens and eggs, goats, fish, honey bees, grains, fruits, vegetables and herbs.

Many of the products from the farm can be purchased at the Berea College Farm Store a block from downtown. They sell meat and produce, flowers and herbs, fresh baked goods, and a new favorite indulgence of Crank & Boom Ice Cream, made in nearby Lexington.

So when I set out to make a pie--another practice that always helps ground me in the place where I am--I bought most of the ingredients from the Farm Store and other local producers. I've been trying out the Kentucky-milled all-purpose flour from Weisenberger Mill as well as a red heirloom cornmeal from nearby Salamander Springs Farm.

Though no sour cherries (my favorite) were to be found, this sweet cherry and cornmeal combination is auspicious-- the sweet and smooth flavor and texture of the cherries pairing perfectly with the grit and grain of the cornmeal. And of course, these pie slices were topped with some of that Crank & Boom-- of the Bourbon Honey variety.

 Sweet Cherry Pie with a Cornmeal Streusel
Adapted from The Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book

Ingredients
Nothing in the House pie crust, halved
1 small baking apple, peeled and shredded
5 cups sweet cherries, pitted
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 Tablespoons cornstarch (potato starch may also be used)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
2 dashes Angostura bitters

For cornmeal streusel:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cornmeal (I used Salamander Springs' red heirloom cornmeal)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup salted butter, cold and cubed

Directions
For the crust:
1. Prepare half of the Nothing-in-the-House pie crust as per the directions. Chill dough at least 1 hour before rolling out and fitting into a greased and floured 9-inch pie pan. Place pie plate in fridge for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

2. Once you've let the pie crust chill, prick crust with a fork all over the bottom. Line crust with parchment paper and pie weights or dried beans and bake for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, remove weights, and bake 3 more minutes. Let crust cool completely and once cool, place in fridge while you prepare the pie filling.

3. Preheat (or leave on) oven to 425 degrees F. To prepare the streusel top, stir together the flour, cornmeal, and brown sugar in a medium bowl, Sprinkle in the butter pieces and toss to coat. Rub the butter into the dry ingredients with your fingers until the butter is incorporated and the mixture is lumpy but not homogenous. Place in the fridge to chill for at least 15 minutes while you prepare the filling. 

4. Place shredded apple, pitted cherries, lemon juice, brown sugar, cornstarch, sea salt, cinnamon, cardamom, and bitters in a large bowl and toss until well mixed. Pour the filling into the refrigerated pie shell and evenly distribute the chilled streusel on top. 

5. Brush pie crust with an egg wash and sprinkle with Turbinado sugar, if desired. Place pie on a baking sheet on the lowest rack of the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes, then reduce heat to 375 degrees F and continue to bake until the crust is a deep golden brown and the filling juices are bubbling throughout, about 30-35 minutes longer.

6. Remove pie from oven and let cool completely on a wire rack, about 2-3 hours (if you can wait that long). Serve slightly warm or at room temperature. We enjoyed ours with Crank and Boom's Bourbon Honey ice cream.



Related Recipe:
Sour Cherry Pie

An Interview with Stella Parks of BraveTart

Photos by Sarah Jane Sanders

For the past two months, I've been writing the series "Give Me Some Sugar," on Southern women pastry chefs for the Southern Foodways Alliance & Southern Living's The Daily South blogs. I've interviewed Momofuku Milk Bar's Christina Tosi; Sonya Jones, whose sweet potato cheesecake won over President Clinton (in his pre-vegan days); and Phoebe Lawless of Scratch-- one of my favorite bakeries in Durham, NC. Though I've thoroughly enjoyed conversations with all of the chefs I've talked to, one I was especially excited to have an excuse to chat up is Stella Parks, the pastry chef at Table Three Ten in Lexington, KY and the brain child (bravechild?) behind the superb baking blog BraveTart.

I first found Stella through my friend Francis' twitter and in doing so hit a one-gal gold mine of baking skills, smarts, and quick wit. BraveTart, which Stella publishes with photographers Rosco Weber and Sarah Jane Sanders is a funny, beautiful, well-written, and incredibly helpful blog specializing in updated and creative version of classic American desserts. Think homemade Milanos, Salted Caramel Brown Butter Hazelnut Brownie Chunk Nutella Swirl Ice Cream (yep), and Bourbon Buttermilk Layer Cake.

The profile I was writing on Stella for SFA was just a short little number, but as you can tell from the aforementioned ice cream title, she has a lot to say and it's all worth being said. Though I couldn't use all of her quotes (or just have her write the whole darned thing) for Give Me Some Sugar, I thought all of Stella's musings on gendered flavors, Kentucky sense of place, and "coming full circle" should be shared-- just like her Cookie Dough Reese's Cups. 

This year SFA is focusing on women, work, and food. In light of that, could you talk about how being a woman has informed your work as a pastry chef?

I’ve experienced sexual harassment and gender discrimination in my life, but happily not at work. Obviously, I spend a lot of time “being a girl,” but I don’t think being a girl changes my approach to desserts anymore than it changes my approach to driving a car. 

Someone might say a dessert with malty, smokey, earthy flavors is “masculine.” But I grew up in the middle of a tobacco field, literally a stone’s throw from the world’s most famous bourbon distilleries. Am I making a masculine dessert by pairing tobacco ice cream with bourbon caramel? It doesn’t feel that way to me, it feels like a homey dessert.

On the flip side, someone might say floral flavors are “feminine,” but I grew up watching the jockeys who won Derby have their horse crowned with roses, watching men go to church with a flower tucked into their boutonnière. Is a dessert made with rose flower water feminine? I don’t think so. I don’t think flavors are gendered.

How did you get into baking? Did you always know this would be your path?

As a kid, I’d bake for fun, but a career in food was nowhere on my radar. At 14, I got a part time job in a restaurant, and really enjoyed the work. All along, I wanted to write a book, so my teachers in school pushed me toward an English or Lit major. Throughout high school, I assumed that’s exactly what I’d do.

Late my senior year, I suddenly wondered what that would make me when I grew up. I wanted to be an author. But getting an English major wouldn’t make me an author. Writing a book would. And writing a book would take time, and during that time I’d need to eat and pay rent and that sort of thing, so I thought how would I make money with an English degree until I wrote my book? 

I had no idea. But I knew I didn’t have a personality suited to teaching, or to journalism, or to whatever other English-majory jobs I could think of. I knew I liked working in restaurants, working with my hands and on my feet. Then I started researching culinary schools, thinking I could work in food service and write on the side.

How would you describe your style/approach to baking?

I don’t ever want anyone to try one of my desserts and think, “oh that was interesting” while simultaneously wishing they’d just had a brownie instead. I absolutely want to incorporate interesting techniques and flavors and textures into each dessert, but I want them to hit the spot. So I always approach a dessert as something that should satisfy whatever craving led a customer to order it. They always deliver a major flavor punch in a format that gives you something to sink your teeth into.

What's your take on Southern food and how does it inform/appear in your baking?

I’ve always used ingredients like buttermilk, sorghum, cornmeal, sassafras and bourbon. I’d never really thought about them being Southern (or “Kentucky”) until I started blogging. Then I’d get these emails form people in New York or Oregon, asking “where can I find sorghum?” or “where can I find stone ground cornmeal?” Then I started to realize how much the experience of growing up in Kentucky informed how I stocked my pantry, influenced my cravings. 

I grew up in a little country town called Versailles, so I have a “Versailles” macaron, which plays on the French/Kentucky dichotomy the name suggests. It’s an almond free cornmeal shell with a sorghum buttercream. 

What makes food "Southern" in your mind? How do you connect to the history of the South (through food or otherwise)?

My sense of Southern hospitality is about unpretentious generosity. I like riffing on recipes that have come down through the generations, like apple stack cake or lady Baltimore. Actually, I picked up a copy of the 19th century novel, Lady Baltimore because I wanted to read it and get a better understanding of what that original cake might have been. It’s a stunning novel, equal parts romanticism and racism and culture and class. It didn’t tell me anything new about the cake, but it gave an incredible look at the “old South” into which it was born. A slower way of life that allowed for a celebratory slice of cake in the middle of the day for no reason at all.

What's your favorite thing to bake? Favorite baked good to eat?

I’m in the throes of a pudding obsession right now. It’s such a little powerhouse. It can stand on its own or form the basis of a cream pie, be used to make an old timey buttercream, even folded with whipped cream to make a cheater’s “mousse.” I’m actually eating Tonga vanilla pudding right now...

What's your most prized kitchen item?

I have a set of plastic measuring spoons that I’ve used since I was about 8; they came as part of a cookbook set my parents bought for me. I dug them up recently at my folks’ house and decided to take them to work. It’s a nice sense of coming full circle. 



I recently made Stella's Oatmeal Cream Pies, which somehow manage to be simultaneously spot-on accurate and better than the original. You can find many more of her recipes on BraveTart, but for Give Me Some Sugar, Stella shared her recipe for Cornmeal Madeleines--another play on the French/Kentucky theme. Though not a pie, I'm thinking they'd make a great whoopie pie base with a chocolate orange hazelnut buttercream sandwiched in between...

Cornmeal Madeleines
from Stella Parks of BraveTart

Yields 18 cookies
Leaf lard adds an amazing richness to the madeleines and makes my favorite version by far. If that’s a problem ingredient for you, or just inconvenient, melted (or clarified) butter will work nicely too.

Ingredients
1 1/2 ounces butter or leaf lard, melted
4 ounces whole milk
1 egg
1 3/4 ounce sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or the scrapings from half a vanilla bean pod
2 1/2 ounces yellow cornmeal, preferably fine or medium grind
2 3/4 ounces all purpose flour, sifted
optional: coarsely ground cornmeal for sprinkling

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350° F and lightly spray the madeleine mold (it helps the shells brown better with silicon) or mini-muffin tin. If using a cornbread pan, brush the molds with butter or oil and put it in the oven and wait until it’s piping hot before filling. This will give you a great crust and prevent sticking.

2. Making the batter couldn’t be easier. Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl and whisk until no lumps remain. Let the batter stand for 10 minutes, or until it thickens, before filling each shell 3/4 full (about two teaspoons).

3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the humps no longer seem to have molten centers. I love these cookies best served warm, but they’ll keep for about two days in an airtight container (becoming increasingly perfect to dip into hot coffee or tea). They’re also great toasted, with a dot of jam.