The Anthropology of Pie in Sift Magazine

Earlier this year, I was given the dream assignment of writing "The Anthropology of Pie" for the fall issue of King Arthur Flour's baking magazine Sift. As I could write chapters on the subject (and maybe some day I will), I decided to zoom in on historical moments where pie has displayed its economy, ingenuity, and scrappiness to reinvent itself in contexts both urban and rural; commercial and domestic; individual, and communal.

Sift also included four of my pie recipes (three original, one adapted from the excellent First Prize Pies by Allison Kave), all of which first appeared on the blog: Cranberry Chocolate Chess Pie, Passion Fruit Meringue Pie with Macadamia Crust, Delicata Squash Pie (from the early days!), and Bourbon Ginger Pecan Pie.

Thank you to the kind folks at King Arthur flour, especially editor Susan Reid, photographer Mark Weinberg, and stylist Erin McDowell for making my pies and words look so good. Sift is available online and in many book and grocery stores around the country.

Photos via King Arthur Flour

North Carolina Pie Eaters c. 1940s

Video via the State Archives of North Carolina

I'm headed down to North Carolina today to give a pie lecture to my wonderful thesis advisor Dr. Marcie Cohen Ferris' foodways class, so I thought I'd share this 16mm film clip of two 1940s-era High Point, NC college students eating pie. They look pretty pleased there, in the Pie Enjoyment Zone, and perhaps a little embarrassed to be stuffing their faces on camera. Personally, I'm pretty pleased to be heading down south for a few days, to spend some time with Marcie and her class, do a little foodways research, plot out a film, play some music, hang with the gals at my favorite Chapel Hill restaurant, meet my friends' new baby(!), and if there's another time between all of that, squeeze in a visit to Scratch.

UPDATE: Apparently my grandfather attended High Point College around this time! Perhaps he knew these pie eaters.