Thanks for the bread salad recipe. So glad you wrote it down as we tossed it together. Tried to recreate it by memory the other day, and it just wasn't the same. That dash of camaraderie was missing, methinks.
As for slab pie, funny you should ask. Am just about to start making one. I rarely make the same one twice, but you know how that goes. Since it's the tail end of peach season, I bought way too many at the farmer's market the other day and now they're begging to be mingled with blueberries (always have a stash in my freezer).
But first, a little history of slab pie. My grandfather was a baker and one of his specialties was apple slab pie. He did a mean rhubarb slab pie too. Instead of using a pie pan—he had 11 children and even two pies were barely enough to go around. So he rolled out the pastry to slip onto a jelly-roll pan, tossed fresh fruit with sugar, cornstarch or flour, and maybe cinnamon, then piled it on top of the pastry. Then he tucked the fruit in with a top blanket of pastry and baked. When golden brown, it got a drizzle of vanilla icing. The finished wunderbar was a rectangular skinny pie to be eaten out of hand like a brownie. Altho I prefer a plate because of the a la mode factor.
That's the history. The reality is, I'm about to make one now. Fresh peaches and blueberries. Recipe and photo to come, because I still can't figure out how to post photos to this thing.
She can cook, but can she master technology?
Wonderful! Not only have you enriched the world with Slab Pie history; you've conquered the photo challenge, too. What I love about the Slab Pie is, it feels unusual, something we have't seen before, not in the Southwest.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, pies just don't hold the favor that cheesecake and creme brulee enjoy down here. Anything chocolate - brownie, cake, cookie - has a home on the dessert menu, not the pie. We're already out of peach season; I do love a simple, wholesome, peach pie.
Has the pie faded to the background because no one is out there teaching the fine art of crust-making? Did it get lost, generationally, somewhere in the 1970s?
How do pies fare in the Midwest?