Fresh Wild Maine Blueberry Pie

I've been paying annual visits to my friends Nathan and Clara and their little ones on their farm in Brooklin, Maine since 2008. But I've always visited in the spring or early summer, when the wild blueberries are blooming, but not yet ripe. This year, though, I made my yearly pilgrimage in early September, in what I discovered to be the most glorious season in Maine, with sunny days, perfect temperatures, and the wild blueberries, huckleberries, raspberries, blackberries, and cranberries all ripe for the picking. Even the early apples were ready to be pressed into cider.

One afternoon, we walked out to their blueberry fields with rakes and pails and Nathan taught us how to harvest the berries by running a hand-held rake through the shrubs. The wild lowbush blueberries, vaccinium angustifolium, that are native to Maine and other northern regions of the United States, were a staple of the Native American diet in those regions. According to the Oxford Companion to Food, native peoples ate the berries fresh or sun-dried them to be used in puddings or cakes or ground them into meal to flavor meats and soups. New England colonists called the berries "hurtleberries" or "whortleberries"-- if you come across a period recipe that calls for them, you now know what it's referring to.

The more widespread highbush blueberry was not cultivated until the early 1900s and is generally a combination of highbush, "rabbit-eye," and lowbush varieties. Low-bush berries can be about four times smaller than their domesticated highbush counterparts and lack the tartness, instead packing a sweet, potent punch. Because of this, they are ideal to be enjoyed just fresh as is-- and by the handful.

After we raked several bushels, we lugged our full pails back down to the barn, where Nathan put them through the winnower-- a sort of steampunk contraption composed of various belts and gears, designed to separate the stems and sticks that collect with the berries while raking. 

Clara and Nathan like to make this Fresh Blueberry Pie, layering a quick jam with fresh berries on top, in a baked pie crust topped generously with whipped cream. Their recipe offers the best of both worlds-- cooked and fresh berries, and aside from the pie crust preparation, it comes together quickly, so you can get to eating faster. It would be suitable for any type of berry-- huckleberries, blackberries, raspberries, or maybe a combination for a "Maine in September Fresh Berry Pie."

Fresh Wild Maine Blueberry Pie
From Clara & Nathan of Stoneset Farm

Ingredients
Nothing in the House pie crust recipe, halved
1 quart fresh low-bush blueberries (can also use high-bush blueberries or any kind of berry, really)
1/2 cup white sugar
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
Turbinado sugar, for dusting
Whipped cream

Directions
1. Prepare half of Nothing in the House pie crust as per the directions, reserving the leftover egg for an egg wash and saving other half of the recipe in the freezer for a future pie. Chill dough at least one hour before rolling and fitting into a greased and floured 9-inch pie pan. Prick crust with fork all over the bottom. Place pie pan in the freezer for 1 hour to set before baking. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2.  Remove crust from freezer, line with parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Blind bake crust for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, remove paper and weights, brush with egg wash and dust with Turbinado sugar. Return crust to oven and bake for 5-8 more minutes more or until fully baked, puffed, and golden brown. Let cool while you prepare the filling.

3. In a saucepan, mash 1 1/2 cups of the berries with the sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and nutmeg. Bring sauce to a boil and stir until thick. You're essentially making a quick jam, so it should be about the consistency of thick sauce or heated preserves.

4. Gently stir in another 1 1/2 cups of berries until incorporated. Pour into baked pie crust and smooth. Top with remaining 1 1/2 cups of berries and chill until set, at least 1 hour. Serve, as Nathan and Clara say, with "scads of whipped cream."

Related recipes:
Blueberry Buckle
Blueberry Hand Pies
Blueberry Icebox Pie
Blueberry Pie

Blueberry Pie

Blueberry pie has long had a place on 4th of July menus. It's an American classic, for one, particularly in the North. A recipe appears in Fannie Farmer's 1896 Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (though strangely calling for six de-seeded green grapes to improve flavor) and is the state dessert of Maine (though wild low-bush berries are the standby there). 

The timing also aligns-- the little blue berries (or blue bellies as I called them when I was little) generally ripen shortly after the first day of summer. Food Timeline's 4th of July Food History, blueberry pie is prescribed on Good Housekeeping's suggested menus of both 1949 and 1955, in the latter to be served with "Spiced Sour Cream and Hot Coffee (instant)." 

This year a deep-dish blueberry skillet pie found its way onto my 4th of July table. I spent the weekend on the beach in Ocean City, Maryland with my friends Elizabeth, Grant, and Chickpea the dog. Along with the pie, our Independence Day menu consisted of homemade pizza, American beer (some fancy, some cheap), and homemade coffee ice cream. We enjoyed it on the balcony amidst a 360 fireworks display while Chickpea took cover under the bed.

Blueberry Pie

Ingredients
Nothing in the House pie crust
6 cups fresh blueberries, washed and de-stemmed
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon salt
Splash of lemon juice
1 egg (you can use remainder from crust) + 1 Tablespoon whole milk or cream for egg wash
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 berries, cornstarch, brown sugar, cinnamon, lemon zest, and salt. Stir together to combine. 

3. Pour the filling into the pie crust and arrange so that its mounded slightly in the center. Sprinkle on the lemon juice.

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 40-45 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:
Blueberry Basil Jam
Blueberry Buckle
Blueberry Hand Pies
Blueberry Icebox Pie

A Berry Pie Round-Up for the 4th of July

I'm not always the most patriotic person. Lately I've been pretty heartbroken and confused about the state of our country and it's hard to feel like we've really made progress in dismantling institutionalized racism and injustice. But there have also been real sparks of hope: Marriage equality. Bree Newsome. Obama's "Amazing Grace."

Sometimes food-- not to mention food blogging (and about pies no less)--in the context of all of this can feel trivial and frivolous. But food can also be that glimmer of hope, a reminder of our culture and people power. It's sustenance to ground us in place, a reason to gather, something for the hands and body to do while the mind is reeling.

This fourth of July will be a space to think about it all-- the contradictions, the tragedies, the successes. A good time to catch up on some reading and writing, share some food with friends, celebrate the progress we've made as a country and think about what's next.

Here's a round-up of some berry pies and desserts from this blog and other favorites for your holiday gatherings. I'm not sure what I'll whip up this weekend, but I'm planning to let the berries lead the way.

Blueberries
Blueberry Buckle
Blueberry Hand Pies
Blueberry Icebox Pie
Blueberry Shortcakes with Whipped Cream Cheese
Plum and Blueberry Galette

Raspberries & Blackberries
Berry Tartlets
Lime & Raspberry Italian Meringue Pie
Peach Blackberry Cobbler
Peach Blackberry Pie
Wild Blackberry Lemon-Goat Cheese Tart

Strawberries
Pickled Strawberry Piescream Sandwiches
Strawberry Creme Tart
Strawberry & Fresh Cheese Tart
Strawberry Icebox Pie
Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Mixed Berries
Berry & Apricot Galettes with Saffron
Berry Cobbler
Campfire Skillet Crisp
Currant Syrup, Switchel, and Gooseberry-Black Cap Pie
Gooseberry-Apricot Pie

Blueberry Hand Pies

For the past month, I've been working as the Director of the LongHouse Scholars Program, a food media internship in Rensselaerville, NY. My job is part curriculum developer, part camp counselor, part media editor, and part teacher. Mostly I've been setting up a lot of structure-- planning the weekly schedule, researching background for documentaries, and managing projects. In a way, I'm setting up the frame and canvas for the 9 scholars to paint within.

That role was also true, in a sense, for these blueberry hand pies. My coworker and LongHouse chef extraordinare Ame, asked me to make several batches of pie crust that we could freeze and use throughout the program. One night during dinner prep, two scholars, Thomas and Johnisha, used some of the dough to make dessert for the scholars and staff and our visiting guests-- Rod and Debra Smith of Smith Bites. Though I've sometimes missed being the one leading the creative direction, I've also learned that I love facilitating other's artistic work, whether you can eat it with ice cream or not.



Blueberry Hand Pies
Adapted from Bon Appetit

Ingredients
Nothing-in-the-House Pie Crust
4 c. (about 20 oz.) fresh blueberries
2 tsp. lemon zest
2 Tblsp. lemon juice
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1 large egg, whisked with 1 tsp. heavy cream
2 Tblsp. Turbinado sugar, for sprinkling

Directions
1. Prepare Nothing-in-the-House pie crust as per the directions. Once chilled, roll out dough onto a floured surface and cut into 12 rectangles of equal size. Place rectangles on parchment paper on a cookie sheet and return to chill in the fridge while you prepare the filling.

2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a medium bowl, toss blueberries, lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, and salt. Remove cut dough from fridge and mound blueberry mixture into the center of each rectangle. Brush edges of rectangles with water, fold dough over filling, and press edges with a fork to seal. Brush hand pies with egg wash, sprinkle with sugar, and cut a steam vent in the top of each.

3. On a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, bake hand pies for 35-45 minutes, rotating cookie sheet half-way through. Filling will be bubbling and crust will be golden brown when done. Transfer pies to a wire rack and let cool. Serve warm or at room temperature with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Related recipes:
Blueberry Icebox Pie
Peach Bourbon Ginger Hand Pies

Eating Our Words: A Progressive Dinner

As I previously mentioned, this spring at NELP I taught a Food Writing Society to a wonderful group of five talented women. The final project of the society was to create a culminating event that would allow us to share our work with the rest of the community. We wanted to convey the principles of our class-- that food is a language and that exploring the foods of our required authors (Thoreau and his beans and bread, Sarah Orne Jewett and the pies in The Country of the Pointed Firs, Wallace Steven's "Study of Two Pears," etc.), informs our reading of the text as well as our "reading" of the food. We also wanted to communicate our belief that food is an important foundation for intellectual thought and writing, and can be a symbol for relationships, identity, history, and culture. At NELP and in many of the communities that we inhabit, food is the nexus of social life.

With these goals in mind, we collaboratively developed a progressive dinner, "Eating Our Words," that would allow us to recreate and share the foods of our authors in different settings around Camp Kabeyun. We started with chowders, beans, and bread in the dining hall, and via a map, lead everyone on a self-guided eating tour. 

There were stops at the herb garden for a sampling Alymer's elixirs, from the Nathaniel Hawthorne story "The Birthmark," a recreation of Phoebe's kitchen from Carolyn Chute's novel Merry Men, a half-bushel of cornmeal-- weekly rations for four slaves, which Frederick Douglass writes of in his Narrative, and pickles on the dock as per the Lloyd S. Barrington poem, also from Merry Men. It all culminated in the Bowden/NELP family reunion, inspired by Country of the Pointed Firs, with pies and Emily Dickinson's coconut cake, and a reading of the student's work.

Though we had to change some plans due to windy and rainy weather--we had wanted to have our "doughnut island" on the floating dock (mostly to see who would swim for a doughnut) and our Family Reunion in the meadow-- the dinner was wonderful and left me inspired and full. I think we met our goals of prompting others to consider the importance of food in literature and our own lives.


I was so impressed and thankful by the work of the society members-- Abby, Ariella, Brooke, Emily, and Madalyn. They put in a lot of time and hard work in the kitchen and the typewriter to pull it all off. In the words of Sarah Orne Jewett, "The feast was a noble feast," with "an elegant ingenuity displayed in the form of pies, which delighted my heart."

 

Blueberry Icebox Pie

We used to go blueberry picking every summer. We'd pile in the red minivan with armloads of tupperware, drive out to the blueberry farm, and collect our buckets, strapping them around out waists with the old belts they had for borrowing. As the berries ker-plinked, ker-planked, ker-plunked into the bottom of the bucket, I imagined that I was a character in Blueberries for Sal, wandering off along the hillside, straying from my mother and happening upon a mama bear. Though these were farmed, high-bush blueberries (which I called bluebellies, since they look like little blue belly buttons), instead of wild low-bush berries, and there were certainly no bears nearby, it was still easy to pretend.

I haven't been berry picking yet this summer, though I have been picking berries out at the farmers' market, and a few weekends ago, it was fresh blueberries at the Takoma Park Market. I brought them home and whipped them up into a blueberry icebox pie, based on Nancie McDermott's recipe for a strawberry icebox pie, which I made about a month ago. As I said before, this recipe is a wonder, because it's super simple and incredibly versatile. Try it with raspberries or peaches, strawberries or bluebellies or some kind of summery combination--it'll always be good. It also requires little stove & oven time and a lot of refrigeration time, so you don't have to mess around with melted-butter crust dough while you sweat it out in your hot kitchen. Though it might not be a real berry-picking summer so far, I hereby declare this the summer of the icebox pie.

Blueberry Icebox Pie
An adaptation of Nancie McDermott's Strawberry Icebox Pie recipe from Southern Pies

Ingredients
For crust:
1 1/4 c. gingersnap crumbs
3 Tblsp. sugar
1/3 c. butter, melted

For filling:
1/3 c. cornstarch
1/3 c. water
5 c. blueberries, ideally fresh (though frozen is okay too!)
1 c. sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. lemon zest
2 tsp. butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 c. heavy cream + 1 c. (extra cup is for topping, optional)
1 c. additional fresh blueberries, (for garnish, optional)

Directions
For crust:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Put gingersnaps in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until crackers are finely ground into crumbs. Add sugar and melted butter and pulse until well mixed.

2. Pat the buttery crumbs into a 9-inch pie pan, pressing mixture into the bottom and sides to form a pie crust. Place in oven and bake until crust is lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Place on a cooling rack and let cool to room temperature before adding the filling.

For filling:
1. Combine cornstarch and water in a small bowl, whisking until all lumps are dissolved. Set aside.

2. Combine blueberries, sugar, salt, and lemon zest in a medium saucepan. Cook on medium heat until the blueberry mixture comes to a low boil. Stirring often, continue to cook the mixture until a sauce begins to form, about 5 minutes.

3. Re-whisk the cornstarch and water mixture and add it to the saucepan. Continue to cook and stir the sauce until it boils again, becomes thick and berries soften, approximately 3-4 minutes longer. Remove from the heat, stir in the butter and vanilla and set aside to cool to room temperature.

4. Meanwhile, whip 1 1/4c. cream in a large bowl until it becomes very thick and holds round medium peaks. Stir in the blueberry jam mixture and gently it in with the cream until evenly combined. Pour filling into the gingersnap crust and refrigerate for at least 3-4 hours, until pie is very cool and the filling is quite firm. Serve cold, with extra blueberries and topped with additional whipped cream.

Though this pie was originally intended for a Fort Reno picnic or a post-baseball game (Go Nats) treat, I ended up getting a wicked migraine that lasted for days, so was not able to partake in any of those summer activities, let alone this pie. However, it was at the ready in the fridge when my parents stopped by for a visit last week, and we enjoyed a slice after a delicious pizza dinner out at Two Amy's.

Dad Blogs!: Campfire Pie Warming Shelf

My dad submitted this post about a campfire pie on a recent Wyoming camping trip...

Recently while camping at a remote mountain lake in Wyoming we were faced with a serious pie dilemma.

We had a blueberry pie that we had picked up at a local pie shop in Ten Sleep, Wyoming and were all dying to eat it but everyone in our camp, nicknamed "The J Team" (Josh, Joe, Jim, and John) by our hiking companions at Yellowstone the day before, decided that because of the cool ambient temperatures at 12,000 feet, the pie had to be warm.

Pie warming shelf

Josh, the youngest of our group at 24 and a recent St. Olaf graduate (take note all of you prospective employers looking for an environmentalist) put on his thinking cap, grabbed a big buck saw and started to work.

Jim putting the pie on the shelf

He created a pie warming shelf that we put into the campfire and we were able to warm the pie to the perfect eating temperature.

Jim in the PEZ

It also gave it a bit of a smokey flavor which was just perfect for the campfire setting.

Thanks to my dad for the post and the tip!

Pi(e) Day in Ontario

A former Nelper and friend Kara sent in these photos of her family's Pi(e) Day celebration in London Ontario. She says,

We had our pie baking day on Friday, during which we cooked five pies--apple, blueberry, cherry, chocolate raspberry torte and a sweet pinto bean pie-- in addition to two dozen butter tarts (a Canadian treasure, our recipe for which is top secret!). Your nothing-in-the-house pie crust recipe has been a real hit with my relatives over the last few months. It made a lovely addition to my spinach and tomato quiche and the last two pies I made Friday.

We took some pictures of the pie enjoyment zone while we ate the chocolate raspberry torte.


The first picture is of my grandma looking skeptical before eating the pie and then her smiling afterwards.


Thanks for the recipes for the tart and the pinto bean pie! DELICIOUS!

Also, March 14th is Albert Einstein's birthday! The picture I've included is one of my favorites of him; I imagine this is what his PEZ would look like!

HAPPY PI(e) DAY!

Thanks to Kara for these sweet words and photos. For another Canadian pie story, check out this radio piece on PRX. Stay tuned for more Pi(e) Day documentation coming soon...

The Blueberry Pie Elf

For Christmas my mom gave me a copy of a re-print of the 1959 children's classic The Blueberry Pie Elf, by Jane Thayer and with pictures by Seymour Fleishman. It is the story of a little elf, Elmer, who loves blueberry pie so much that he tries to convince the family (whose house he lives in) to make him one by helping them out with household chores. Apple and cherry pies just won't do for little Elmer--only blueberry! I won't reveal how he finally communicates this message to the family, but I will share some of my favorite illustrations from the book...

I hope you also received some lovely little treasures (or lovely little pies) this holiday season!

Indiana Thanksgiving Pies

I unfortunately haven't been unable to spend Thanksgiving with my family for the past five years or so. North Carolina to northern Indiana is a long trek, and Vermont to Indiana even farther, especially with the Christmas trip home just a few weeks away.

But my mom sent me some photos of our family's Thanksgiving pies, enjoyed at my aunt and uncle's house in South Bend, IN. Here is my mom's pumpkin pie, with turkeys trotting around the perimeter. You can surely see where I got my love of pies, and my penchant for crust design.


Here is the pie board at their dinner, with the above pumpkin pie made by my mom, an apple cranberry with an oak leaf crust design made by my aunt Chantelle, and a blueberry pie made by another dinner guest.


Check back here soon for more Thanksgiving pie re-caps. What pies did you enjoy this holiday?

Babies, Banjos, and Blueberry Pie

After my stint in the woods, I went up to Brooklin, ME for what has become an annual visit to Nathan and Clara, Magpie and Eleanor of Stoneset Farm (you may recall the pie potluck we had there last year). We caught up and discussed grad school and religion, Lady Gaga and Swan Lake (Eleanor, age 3, is into it now-- both Russian and American versions), farming and feminism, played a lot of blocks and a lot of music, and worked in the green house.

On my last evening there, we picked garlic scapes and made pesto out of them, which Clara spread on delicious homemade pizza. I whipped up a blueberry pie (using this recipe) with frozen Stoneset blueberries (it was not quite blueberry season yet). Jamie and Anna came down from Southwest Harbor for a lovely dinner out on the picnic table, followed by some banjo playing.

Blueberry Pie, with Stoneset Farm homemade apple cider and blueberry wine

Magpie lives up to her name

Jamie takes a cue from Magpie and maintains his platelikkin' tradition

Remembering Summer, Through Pies

It's early September, and up in Vermont I know friends are feeling the start of fall. I mistook the cooler weather this week here in North Carolina as the end of summer, but here we are again today with a high of 91 degrees, and highs in the 80s forecasted for the rest of the week. Perhaps it's premature to announce the end of the season, but I must say, I'm anxious for fall with its saturday visits to orchards for doughnuts, cider and apple-picking, leaves-a-changing, lots of Brit psych folk on the stereo, and sweater weather. In any (dessert) case, here are a few pies I made earlier this summer:

Twin open-top blueberry pies with berries picked by Nathalie and me, for ROCKBY 2009, Marina's music festival birthday party at Rokeby.

Another blueberry (bloobz) pie, I made for a burrito cookout during an August Baltimore visit. It was maybe the best blueberry filling I've ever made because it set up so well. I used this recipe, but added a half cup of flour or so to the filling. The crust, however, was a struggle, because of the heat!
And finally, peach-basil pie I made for a Folklore grad student cookout here in North Carolina. The basil came from Josh's herb garden in our backyard. The filling recipe I used was:

Peach-Basil Pie
3 lbs. peaches (maybe more)
1/4 c. lemon juice
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
2 Tblsp. corn starch
1/8 c. julienned fresh basil/lemon basil (I used a mixture)

 In the future, I would probably make a basil simple syrup (like in this pie) instead of just putting in the julienned basil leaves. I thought having a little leaf amongst the peaches was mildly unpleasant, but everyone else said they thought it was peach skin (it was dark). Please enjoy these last days of summer pie possibilities!

Blueberry Pie on the 4th of July

The 4th of July kicked off my summer month of farming, baking, berries, and friends at Rokeby. Matt arrived by train from the city the night before, and after a morning of weeding in the garden and burritos at Bubby's, the 4 of us headed to Grieg's to pick a bucketfull bounty of blueberries for the evening's pies and the buckles and ice cream to be made later.

After a few rounds of bags, a few rounds of beers, and lying in the grass, we set to make the pies before the fireworks started. Matt wanted to try his hand at the crust (using the recipe at right) and I tackled the filling.

Here's the approximate recipe I used, for 1 pie: 

 Combine the following:
At least 6 cups fresh berries, washed and de-stemmed
3 Tblsp. corn starch or arrowroot
1 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. lemon zest
1/4 tsp. salt
Splash of lemon juice
 
Pour into bottom crust, and cut a lattice top (HINT: use a ruler or some other guide so your strips are approx. the same width), wash with a fresh and golden Shoving Leopard Farm egg! Bake for 10 min. at 425, then reduce heat to 350 and bake 35-40 min. longer until crust is golden and flaky, and filling is bubbly. 

We put them in the oven, and went up the dark spiral staircase to the tower, to watch the fireworks from various towns across the Hudson. We all saw a ghost on our descent.

Then we celebrated the birthday of Marina, France, and the USA in the PEZ.