Variations on a Theme of Pies
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hat is a pie? That’s something for consideration. After all, there are many different sorts of pie and a lot of things that seem pielike. For the purposes of this book, I chose to focus on sweet pies rather than savory pies—partly because that’s what most folks are talking about when they discuss Arkansas pie and partly because the research woulda killed me. What I came up with was this. • A pie has a crust. Whether it’s a simple flour and water crust, a graham cracker crust or even some strange blend of saltines and meringue, it’s present. • The pie needs the crust. This is what differentiates pie from cheesecake. A cheesecake can theoretically be made sans crust and usually only comes with a bottom crust. With the exception of some casserole pies (see possum pie), some form of crust is absolutely critical to containment. I did debate on whether fried pies should be included. In the end, they came along for the ride, mostly because of the culture of the hand pie, a convenience food that often incorporates the exact sort of filling normally obtained in a regular pie but needing to be convenient to the working class, especially truckers and farmers and the like who should be able to carry and consume their dessert with a single hand.