Wherein the author re-imagines Robert Frost’s classic ‘Mending Wall’.

Dear Rennie,

Sincerely,
Nervous Elle in West Bromley

The origins of the word “pie” are as murky as the midnight waters of the Dagoba System, but, the general consensus seems to be that our modern definition stems from the word ‘magpie’–the implication being that the contents of the pastry are as varied and disparate as the scraps found in a magpie’s nest.  I’ve yet to find the ribbon of a cassette tape hanging out in a pastry envelope alongside a huckleberry, but, here at the Farmer General, we’re discovering that there are plenty of other equally confounding pie ingredients that have been lost to the ravages of time and far sexier seasonal components. Let’s start with vinegar. Vinegar pie.  It’s not a name that sings off of the page, promising tender crust…

Hard of hearing? Say what now? Fear not, noble subject.  Queen Elizabeth I has the following advice to offer: “Bake a little loaf of bean flour, and being hot rive it in halves, and into each half pour three or four spoonfuls of bitter almonds; then clap both halves to your ears at going to bed… and keep your head warm.”* Pfft, doctors.  Forsooth! Should you care to experiment with the internal application of almonds, as opposed to clapping them over your ears upon retiring, we suggest having a go at making Maids of Honour, as the kitchen of Sir Roger North did at a luncheon for Her Majesty in the summer of 1578.  (They also made ‘Neat’s Tongue Roasted with Rhenish Wine’, but,…

Pies that are named for people run the unfortunate risk of sounding as though that person has been tucked tidily away behind the crust itself—a posterity turducken of sorts, a homemade mausoleum that shows up, calling card at the ready, on your sideboard.