Bridal couples choosing wedding pie, not cake
For one bridegroom, wedding pie, not cake, is the first step toward marital bliss
Five years ago, midway through a second date with a beautiful woman and emboldened by a little too much wine, I revealed my most fanatical belief. I set down the dessert menu, leaned back in my chair and set the crazy free.
"Before we go any further," I said, "there's something you should probably know."
(Rich Hein/Sun-Times)
She drew in her breath.
"For this relationship to work, you have to understand that at my wedding, there will be pie -- not cake -- for dessert."
I stared into her eyes, searching for any hint of fear, ready for her to dart toward the door. "If you can't handle that, it's probably best if you just get out now."
Amazingly, she stayed in her seat. She nodded. Eventually, we resumed our meal.
I've been a pie extremist for as long as I can remember. Our family's photo albums are bursting with pictures of me at age 1, 5, 7, 23, lips coated in pie crumbs and blueberry filling, a look of Buddhist enlightenment on my face.
After a lifetime of pie-induced pleasure, I feel it's time somebody stood up for my perfect dessert. For too long, pie has played the ugly stepchild to that flamboyant diva of desserts, cake.
Sure, plastered with enough frosting and chocolate-ganache implants, cake cuts a fine appearance at a party. But do you ever hear anyone talk about what's on cake's inside?
Cake's dazzling superficiality and popularity has allowed us to ignore its tasteless core. All the while, pie has been standing in the corner waiting patiently for us to notice -- a little homey looking, sure, but with a personality like you wouldn't believe.
Pie is moist where cake is too often arid; it's complex where cake is too often banal. Pie offers me lasting contentment, whereas all cake can tender is a cloying sugar rush.
In a subtle, supple flake of pie crust there is more of heaven than in all the world's slabs of cake combined.
I can't believe I'm alone in this. Despite cake's current sugary dominance, pie has historically been the democratic dessert of the common man in the United States. Pie is the dessert we've turned to for comfort in our actual homes.
However, contrary to popular belief, pie is not an American creation. The first English settlers introduced the egalitarian edible to the continent, and that whole "American as apple pie" thing is actually a misnomer.
"Apples came from England," explains noted food historian and cookbook author Francine Segan. "Apple pies are totally Elizabethan. They came over with the settlers."
It took the influence of German and French settlers to transform pie from utilitarian to revelatory.
"Pie evolved when we discovered that butter was delicious in the crust," Segan said. That occurred sometime around the mid-18th century, coinciding with a steep drop in the price of sugar cane that allowed us to make sugar a staple in our baking.
During the 19th century, pie became such a popular dessert that homemakers would often make 20 a week; we literally ate pie at every meal.
The pie our forefathers enjoyed was slightly less sweet and smaller in size than the kind we eat today.
According to Stephen Schmidt, a culinary historian and author of the forthcoming cookbook Dessert in America, in the 18th century, there were four main American pie varieties: custard, mince, pumpkin or squash and fruit.
"We ate many flavors that we have largely forgotten about now such as plum, pear, currant and gooseberry," Schmidt says. "And we did not thicken the pie filling with flour or cornstarch as is often done today. The filling was just fruit and sugar, but less sugar than we would use now."
There were also some varieties that have thankfully fallen out of common favor in American cuisine, such as the English steak and kidney variety and sweet pea pie -- yes, pea pie was considered a dessert.
That beautiful woman to whom I confessed my pie infatuation has not only agreed to marry me, but she's also indulged my wedding pie demands. Surprisingly, she's just as ready to take a slice as I am.
In forgoing cake at our reception, we are actually snubbing history. According to Segan, cake has been the dominant wedding dessert in the West since at least the 1300s.
Lucky for us, pie is cheap. A truly pimped-out cake can easily run $15 per slice if not more. A luscious eight-piece pie, on the other hand, generally costs no more than $15 entirely -- or less than $2 a slice. In this dire economic era, pie is practical, cake a luxury. It's time for the pie-eaters of the world to unite!
Another reason I am going to be proud to tout pie's merits as a fitting end for my wedding: its seasonality. Pie is in tune with the seasons. This means apple pie in the fall, strawberry-rhubarb in late summer, peach in June.
And in America, pie is as regionalized as dialects, serving as a landmark of place and history. The Pennsylvania-Dutch have the molasses-based shoofly pie, while Boston has its cream, and the South its chess, buttermilk and sugar (essentially pecan pie without the nuts). Pie was locavore before locavore was cool.
So now that I have my pie, consider this my line in the sand -- or more accurately, my cut in the crust. It's not me who's insane for wanting pie at my wedding, but rather the world for ignoring pie as a harbinger of marital bliss.
My impending nuptials thrill me, but I'm also enraptured about that dessert table, the apple-cheddar, blueberry, coconut creme and strawberry-rhubarb basil to come.
I do, I certainly, certainly do.
Vincent Rossmeier is a research assistant for blogger Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com, where this article first appeared.