We’re so glad you’re here—your letter’s either in the mail making its way swiftly to you or perhaps already in your hand! This month’s pie recipe is written out below and we hope it finds its way to a well-loved kitchen and a table full of people you care about. If you make this tried and true peach pie, leave us a comment and let us know how it turned out. We’d truly love to hear from you.

Peach and Apple orchards used to be abundant in the Ozarks. They were the livelihood of many small farms. So many of the old orchards are gone now but these vintage recipes still remain to give a taste of what life was like in those days.

These are the recipes I found my inspiration from for the August pie. I did originally try the cream cheese spread across the bottom of the pie crust but did not care for how it tasted once the pie was baked. If you are a fan of cream cheese in pastries and baked goods please give it a try and let me know what you think.

I hope you will support your local fruit orchards or farmers markets and buy your fresh fruit straight from the grower.

Ingredients

5 cups sliced peaches, fresh

3 teaspoons lemon juice

⅓ cup brown sugar

½ teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons all purpose flour

¼ teaspoon apple pie spice (or allspice)

½ cup sour cream

2 egg yolks, reserve egg whites

1 pastry crust or frozen pie shell for a 9-inch, deep dish pie

Crumb Topping

1 cup all-purpose flour,

½ cup brown sugar,

¼ teaspoon apple pie spice

½ cup butter.

• Cut peaches in half and remove the pit and peel the skin with a paring knife.

• Measure 5 cups of sliced peaches into a large mixing bowl and set aside.

• Sprinkle with lemon juice and toss to coat.

• Combine brown sugar, salt, flour and apple pie spice to a medium mixing bowl and stir together.

• Add sour cream and slightly beaten egg yolks to the dry ingredients and mix until combined.

• Pour mixture over peaches and stir till coated.

• Roll out dough or remove pie shell from freezer.

• Pour peach mixture on top and spread out evenly in the pie crust.

• Put pie in refrigerator until crumble topping is prepared.

• With a pastry blender or fork combine topping ingredients in a small bowl until pea sized pieces start to form.

• Crumble topping over top of pie before baking in the oven.

• The juices in the pie will bubble over so place a baking sheet on the lowest rack. Place the pie on the rack right above the pan while baking.

Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes; lower oven temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking for 40-45 minutes. Filling will begin to set up within 3 hours. Serve warm or cold with vanilla ice cream.

Note: I used a 9-inch deep dish pottery pie plate to make this pie. It’s a lot of filling so you will need a deep dish pan. If you don’t have a deep dish pie pan you can certainly go back to the vintage recipe above and use 2 cups of sliced peaches.

We had so much fun putting this month’s pie recipe and goodies together for you! Thanks for joining us!

Tell us what you think, comment below!

Eula Mae Stratton was a woman of the Ozarks. She was also a kindred spirit, as she took the shoe boxes of recipes her Scotch-Irish grandmother had left to her and turned them into a small cookbook, called Ozarks Cookery, published in 1976.

Miss Stratton was a column writer for a magazine publication called The Ozark Mountaineer in Kirbyville, Missouri on the outskirts of Branson. She desired to help the magazine preserve the heritage and culture of the Ozark region by keeping an eye out for the recipes that had been around in the area for a long time.

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Recipe inspiration came out of a vintage cookbook.

Strawberry Jam (May 17, 1934)

Hull and wash 2 qt. Strawberries. Drain. Mash and crush. Drain off all liquid through a colander. Put liquid into a stew pan (makes about 2 cups) Add 3 cups of sugar, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and boil for 1 minute. Add pulp. Boil for 8-10 minutes.

“Fine as ever I tasted” Mrs. Fina Adair Woodall

I made a batch of Strawberry/Raspberry & a batch of Blueberry. I tweaked the recipe a bit and reduced the amount of ingredients. Please follow the recipe below.

Strawberry/Raspberry Jam

1 ¼ cups frozen strawberries + 1 ¼ cups frozen raspberries (8 oz bags), thaw and reserve juice

1 - 2 cups sugar, depending on the sweetness of your berries (I used 1 cup)

½ cup reserved berry juice

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons of flour

1 tablespoon of butter

Blueberry Jam

1 ¼ cups frozen blueberries (8oz bag), thaw and reserve juice

1/2 cup sugar

1 ½ teaspoon lemon juice

¼ cup blueberry juice (add a little water to the juice if needed)

1 tablespoon flour

½ tablespoon butter

Cooking instructions for both jams.

Pour juice, sugar, flour and lemon juice into a saucepan. Stir and bring to a boil for 1 minute. Add fruit and crush with a spoon or potato masher. Return to a low boil for another 15 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in butter. Let cool. Can be stored in the refrigerator until needed.

Pie Dough Recipe

Ingredients

4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons fine sea salt

3 sticks very cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes

1 cup cold, full-fat sour cream

Note: This makes enough dough for a 9x12 baking sheet. You will need to plan ahead so it has proper chilling time before baking and after shaping into the pan. The dough can be made in a large mixing bowl with a pastry blender but I prefer using a food processor for dough to make sure it’s all incorporated. I have a medium sized processor and it was just big enough for all the dough. I did have to blend in some of the crumbs once it was dumped onto the parchment paper.

In a medium or large food processor pulse together the flour, sugar and salt. Cut the 3 sticks of butter into small pieces and add to the dry ingredients. Pulse to incorporate butter into the flour mixture until small bits begin to form. Add sour cream and pulse until it begins to combine into a moist dough. Place parchment paper down on your work surface and dump the dough in the center. Knead and pat into a log shape and then cut ¾ of it for the bottom crust and the remaining ¼ for the stars and stripes. Press dough into a flat rectangle shape and tightly wrap each piece in parchment paper and place in a zip lock storage bag. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight.

Tip: Go easy on the flour when you roll out the dough. Too much flour will toughen it. Turn dough after rolling a few times and sprinkle flour lightly, when you need it, to prevent the dough from sticking to the mat or rolling pin.

Remove the bigger piece of dough from the parchment and roll out into a rectangle that will fit your 9x12 inch pan. Approximately ½ inch thick. I set the pan on top of my dough to check the size. I tried to have 1 1/2 inches extra around the edge of the pan. Pick the dough up and lightly drape it into the pan. Do not stretch the dough. Tuck under the excess dough and use your fingers to crimp it along the side of the pan to make a rim. Once the dough is in place in the pan you can add a piece of the excess dough and make a 4x5 inch rope piece to separate the blueberry from the raspberry filling.

Use a fork to prick holes in the crust to prevent air pockets from forming while baking. Cover the pan with foil and place back into the fridge for at least 30 minutes or longer before baking.

When you are ready to bake the crust you can place parchment down as shown in the picture above and add rice, beans or pie weights to keep the dough from shrinking or puffing up with air pockets.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Let the crust bake for 10 minutes and then lower the temperature to 375 degrees for the remaining 10 minutes. Take the pie crust out of the oven and remove the parchment paper and pie weights. Place back in oven for 4 minutes until the crust that was covered browns slightly. Remove from the oven and pour in the jams onto the crust. (While in the oven remove the remaining piece of crust from the refrigerator and roll out approximately 12 inches long and cut 6 stripes 1/2 inch wide and 20 mini stars. Place Stars and Stripes on a tray and place back into the fridge until needed.)

Place stars and stripes on top of jam. Lightly brush some half and half or egg white over top of crust, if desired, and sprinkle with sanding sugar. Place the sheet pan into the oven and continue to bake for approximately 20 more minutes until jam is bubbly and Stars and Stripes begin to brown. If your crust isn’t beginning to brown turn your oven to broil for a few minutes to brown crust cutouts.

This pie dough recipe was adapted from Baking with Dorie Cookbook by Dorie Greenspan. Inspiration was also brought about by The Berger Feed. I encourage you to go and support their amazing work!

Serve À la mode with a scoop of ice cream. Enjoy!

We’re so glad you’re here—your letter’s either in the mail making its way swiftly to you or perhaps already in your hand! This month’s pie recipe is written out below and we hope it finds its way to a well-loved kitchen and a table full of people you care about. If you make this delicious Banana Meringue pie, leave us a comment and let us know how it turned out. We’d truly love to hear from you.

Our Banana Meringue Pie Recipe

Pie Dough

(if not using store-bought)

Ingredients

• 2½ cups all-purpose flour

• 1 tablespoon sugar

• 1¼ teaspoon fine sea salt

• 1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cubed

• ½ cup cold water + 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Directions

In a food processor, combine the flour, sugar, salt, and cubed butter. Pulse until coarse crumbs form. Gradually add the cold water and lemon juice, pulsing briefly until the dough just comes together.

Remove the dough and form into two equal rounded discs. Wrap in parchment paper and refrigerate for 2 or more hours.

After chilling, remove one disc and place it on a lightly floured surface. Roll into a 13-inch circle and trim any uneven edges. Gently lay the dough into a 9-inch pie pan. (A glass pie pan works beautifully for even browning.)

Prick the bottom of the dough all over with a fork. Line with parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake at 375°F for 15 minutes, then remove the weights and parchment and bake for another 10–12 minutes, until the crust is golden. Allow the crust to cool completely before adding the banana filling.

Banana Filling

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour

• 2/3 cup granulated sugar

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 2 cups milk, scalded

• 3 eggs, separated (yolks for the filling, whites reserved for the meringue)

• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, cubed

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• 2 medium bananas, sliced

Directions

Begin by scalding the milk in a small saucepan over medium heat until it begins to steam and small bubbles form around the edges. Remove from the heat before it comes to a boil and set aside.

In a medium saucepan, combine the flour, sugar, and salt. Slowly whisk in the scalded milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and comes to a boil. Continue whisking for an additional minute.

Remove the saucepan from the heat. Slowly add a spoonful of the hot liquid to the beaten egg yolks while stirring. Quickly whisk the egg mixture back into the cream mixture in the saucepan. Return the pan to medium heat and cook, stirring constantly, for 3 additional minutes.

Remove from the heat and add the butter and vanilla, stirring until the butter has melted. Beginning with a layer of sliced bananas as the base, gently pour the warm filling in your pre-baked pie shell. Allow the filling to cool slightly while you prepare the meringue.

Meringue

Ingredients

• 3 egg whites, room temperature (reserved from the filling)

• 6 tablespoons granulated sugar

Note: For a thicker meringue, use 5 egg whites and 10 tablespoons sugar.

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425°F.

Place the egg whites in a medium glass bowl. Using a hand mixer, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form, about 3 to 5 minutes. Begin sprinkling in the sugar, one tablespoon at a time, until fully incorporated. Continue beating until stiff peaks form — when you pull the beaters straight up, the peaks should hold without falling over.

Use a metal spoon to dollop the meringue onto the warm pie, being sure to push it all the way up against the crust so it doesn’t pull away during baking.

Place the pie in the oven for 4 minutes, until the tops of the meringue begin to brown. Cool the pie for 4 hours before serving.

If you’re struggling with your recipe at all or want to celebrate a win, share it below.

Share your finished pie photos with us! We would love to hear from you!

While I don’t know the full story of Miss Elsie Rump’s life I can’t help but think she was proud to own the well cared for book. Her neat cursive handwriting bore her name in the corner of the end sheets. Miss Elsie also recorded some of her favorite recipes on the blank pages. My favorite find in the book was on page 589! You’ll have to keep reading to find out what it was.

I almost wonder if Elsie might have won this cook book as a prize or received it as a gift. Her name, Miss Elsie Rump, Inman, Kansas, was written on the end cover in a different handwriting than the rest. Out of curiosity I looked up her name and state on Find A Grave and was surprised to discover her headstone. She lived until she was 86 and apparently never married, keeping the “Miss” in front of her name throughout her life. Elsie also lived in the same town in Kansas, from 1909 till 1995.

While flipping through the pages several slips of paper were discovered. One being a grocery receipt from 09/23/1950 for fifty cents from a dry good store. Two slips of notebook paper had type-written recipes for Plum Cobbler and May Johnson’s Coffee Cake. (You can find the recipes at the end of the article). The remaining recipes were hand written on slips of paper trimmed to 3.5x5. The recipes included Cranberry Salad, Raisin Sauce, Chocolate Icing (never fail), Pineapple Topping Loaf Cake, Graham Cracker Cake and Glazed Icing for Cookies.

When my page turning came to p. 589 I discovered a lovely treasure! Isn’t it a pretty thing?!

One of the recipes that was written in the blank pages of the cook book was for an English Apple Pie. She added little comments like “very good” at the bottom, so you knew it was a keeper. There was also a recipe with no title that looked to be for fudge, using squares of chocolate, milk, salt, sugar, vanilla and 16 marshmallows poured over a graham cracker crust. She added a comment on this one as well— “very good”.

The back of the book contains hand written recipes in pencil for Cloverleaf Rolls, Pie Dough, Sweet Dough, Hot Burger (that was served on buns) and Meat Loaf. These recipes all had 3 lines under the titles for emphasis.

Dear Miss Elsie Rump,

Thank you for leaving behind your beautiful handwriting, your favorite recipes, and a receipt from Jas. A. Poole Dry Goods Co., and a four leaf clover. I have enjoyed getting a peak into your life through your treasured cook book and want to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed looking through it and adding it to my vintage cook book collection.

Kind Regards

We’re so glad you’re here—your letter’s either in the mail making its way swiftly to you or perhaps already in your hand! This month’s pie recipe is written out below and we hope it finds its way to a well-loved kitchen and a table full of people you care about. If you make this delicious cherry pie, leave us a comment and let us know how it turned out. We’d truly love to hear from you.

Our Cherry Pie Recipe

Cherry Filling Ingredients

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 tablespoons cornstarch

6 cups thawed (I used 4 - 12 oz bags, frozen) red tart pitted cherries

Reserve juice (approx. 1 cup) *Note to reader. The last time I made this pie I reduced this to 1/4 cup juice because of the amount of moisture in the thawed berries. This helped to thicken the filling and allowed the pie to set up better for serving.

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Pie Dough Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter

1/2 cup cold water + 1 T lemon juice

Directions

For Cherry Filling

• Drain thawed cherries in a colander and reserve the juice. (Thawing can be done the day before by leaving the bags in the refrigerator.)

• In a medium saucepan, mix:

  • Sugar

  • Salt

  • Vanilla

  • Cornstarch

  • Cherry juice

• Cook on medium-high heat until it comes to a rolling boil, stirring constantly.

• Continue boiling while stirring.

• Add cherries and continue cooking until it begins to bubble.

• Cook until:

  • The liquid thickens

  • It coats the back of a wooden spoon

• Remove from heat and stir in the butter.

• Set the filling aside to cool before pouring into the pie crust.

For Dough (if not using store-bought)

• In a food processor, add:

  • Flour

  • Sugar

  • Salt

  • Cubed butter

• Pulse until coarse crumbs form.

• Gradually add:

  • Cold water

  • Lemon juice

• Pulse briefly to combine until the dough comes together.

• Remove the dough and form into two equal rounded pieces.

• Wrap in parchment paper and refrigerate for 2 or more hours while the cherry filling cools.

Assemble the Pie

• After chilling, remove one disc and place on a lightly floured surface.

• Roll into a 13-inch circle.

• Trim uneven edges.

• Gently lay the dough in a 9-inch pie pan. (A glass pie pan can be used for even browning.)

• Pour in the cooled filling.

• Roll the second disc into another 13-inch circle.

• Trim edges and cut into 12 strips, about 1 inch wide.

• Create the lattice top:

  • Lay 6 strips across the pie.

  • Fold back every other strip.

  • Lay a strip in the opposite direction.

  • Return the folded strips.

  • Continue alternating to create a lattice pattern.

• Fold the bottom crust up over the lattice edges and crimp to seal

Bake

• Place a sheet pan on the bottom rack to catch drips.

• Preheat the oven to 450°F.

• Bake for 10 minutes.

• Reduce heat to 375°F.

• Bake an additional 35–40 minutes, until:

  • The crust is golden

  • The filling is bubbling

• Use a pie shield if needed to prevent the edges from burning.

  

If you’re struggling with your recipe at all or want to celebrate a win, share it below.

Share your finished pie photos! We would love to hear from you!

We learn by doing over and over and over again.

Many of the home cooks I grew up watching made the recipes they loved so many times that it was stuck in their heads and practically perfect, giving off a false impression that all you needed was just a little bit of this and a little bit of that. They learned from repetitive actions, until it became an extension of their daily life and sometimes, they wrote their wisdom down for future generations.

Have you been having trouble finding the perfect crust?

Frustrated with the results you have had in the past with baking the perfect pie?

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This ‘Pie Crust Clinic’ I discovered in the yellowed pages of the Farm Journal’s Complete Pie Cookbook, is filled with helpful hints from the grandmas and great grandmas who went before us. A problem solver’s guide to ease your mind and set you on the right track to perfecting your pie crust!

Having trouble focusing on recipe directions has been a major source of frustration in my own baking experience. It is easy for me to become distracted and overlook an ingredient or step in the recipe once I get going. This may not be your issue, but if it is, I will remind you that following the recipe directions carefully is the secret to pie crust success!

Don’t be fooled by today’s influencers and fast paced recipe reels that make everything look quick and easy. There is a science to baking and that usually involves a lot of patience and slowing yourself down to really read the instructions.

The following tips have been pulled from the above-mentioned lovely old pie cookbook in my collection. There’s so much good information I had a hard time choosing what to share!

Tough

1. Too much fat (butter/crisco) or too much flour when working with dough.

2. Failure to blend flour, fat and water.

3. Over working the dough or rolling too much.

4. Not measuring ingredients correctly.

5. Too much water.

Crumbly

1. Too much fat or not enough water.

2. Did not blend ingredients together enough.

3. Use of self-rising flour.

Shrinking

1. Stretching out the dough when fitting it into the pie pan or fluting the edges.

2. Rolling to uneven thickness or rolling the dough to thin and patching with excess dough.

3. Not pricking dough enough with a fork before parbaking.

4. Not using beans or pie weights to hold crust in place when parbaking crust.

Soggy

1. Underbaking, too short baking time or oven temperature too low.

2. Using shiny pie pans that reflect the heat so crust does not bake evenly.

3. Putting pie pan on aluminum foil or baking sheet.

4. Allowing a bottom crust to sit with filling too long before baking.

Fail to Brown

1. Too little fat.

2. Too much liquid.

3. Over mixing the dough.

4. Use of too much flour when rolling out the dough.

5. Rolling pie dough too thin.

Below are a list of “Do’s for Baking Pies”

• Use the ingredients specified in the recipe. Don’t substitute.

• Use cold water. Put ice cubes in water until ready to use. Cold butter and cold shortening will also help your crust to be flaky.

• Measure accurately.

• Use the pan size recommended in recipe so your filling will fit.

• Check pan size by measuring top inside diameter.

• Use glass or non reflective pans to distribute the heat evenly while baking.

• Use a metal pie crust shield to cover the pie edge to prevent over browning.

• Brush on a light coat of egg white or milk over pie crust before baking to help with browning.

• Cool baked pies on wire racks to let air circulate under the pan to prevent sogginess.

• Pie filling needs to cool completely to set up before serving.

For years I’ve opened my trusted Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook recipe to page 417. I have always used butter flavored Crisco as my shortening of choice and was happy with the results. However, recently this recipe hasn’t been working the way I remembered and after several disappointing crusts, I decided to strike out and try something new. I scanned old and new recipes and finally decided to try this all butter version that I tweaked it just a bit and you know what? It worked!

I’m dropping the recipe here, try it and tell me what you think.

Pie Dough

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon sugar (can be omitted)

1 1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cubed (I currently use Land O’ Lakes over the store brands)

½ cup ice cold water + 1 T lemon juice

I pulsed these ingredients all together in my food processor and divided into two even discs. Then I wrapped them up individually and stored in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, if not longer, before rolling.

I liked how the crust rolled out evenly and held its shape while drapping it into the pie pan. It baked evenly and was perfectly flakey.

If you’ve read this far, you might enjoy joining us on our Pie Supper Mail Club journey. We’re exploring a variety of different vintage pie recipes. You’ll receive a physical letter in the mail monthly, containing a letter, a pie recipe and a blank recipe card created by us.

Join the Mail Club

Let’s make the kitchen the heart of the home again!

- Stacey

What is Pie Supper Mail Club?

Pie Supper Mail Club is our monthly snail mail subscription for people who love vintage recipes, handwritten-style letters, old cookbooks, and the slower things in life.

Every month, we send a little envelope of goodness straight to your mailbox.

Subscribe now

What’s included each month?

Each monthly envelope includes:

• A printed letter from us

• A vintage pie recipe refined for the modern baker

• A blank 4x6 recipe card designed by us

• Occasional extra goodies and surprises

We’re creating something meant to be saved, tucked into recipe boxes, and shared around the table.

How much does it cost?

The Pie Supper Mail Club is $10/month.

Shipping is currently included for U.S. subscribers.

Pie Supper Mail Club

Do you ship internationally?

Right now, we’re only shipping within the United States.

We hope to expand in the future as the club grows.

When will I receive my mail?

Mail will typically go out once per month. Because these are packed and prepared by us, timing may vary slightly from month to month.

We’ll keep subscribers updated through Substack along the way.

Is this a digital subscription?

Nope. This is real mail.

You’ll receive physical printed items in your mailbox each month.

You’ll also get access to follow along with our updates and community discussions on Substack.

What kind of recipes will you send?

Most recipes will be vintage-inspired pie recipes we’ve tested and adjusted for modern kitchens.

Some are pulled from old community cookbooks, handwritten cards, family collections, and forgotten recipe boxes.

Can I cancel anytime?

Yes. You can cancel your subscription anytime through Substack.

Will every month be the same?

Not exactly. While each envelope will include the core items, we want every month to feel a little different.

Some months may include seasonal touches, special inserts, or extra surprises.

Why did you start Pie Supper Mail Club?

We love sharing recipes online, but we missed the feeling of holding something real in our hands. We’ve received so much joy from joining other mail clubs and decided to adjust the idea for our own interests!

The internet moves fast. We wanted to create something slower.

Something worth keeping.

Where can I join?

You can join the Pie Supper Mail Club here:

Pie Supper Mail Club

It was one of those Saturdays.

The kind where you get to slip out of the house, drive into town, and spend a few hours sipping coffee and walking around a cozy flea market.

As I rounded the corner of my first aisle, I walked into a booth with several old cookbooks on a shelf.

You know the kind, with the plastic ring binder, creased corners, and a faded, stained cover from years of use. Usually published by the same company, with the name of the church or ladies’ organization that put them together for fundraising purposes.

The money would then go to buy new songbooks, a coat of paint to freshen up Sunday school rooms, or maybe uniforms for a school band or sports team.

I happened to notice one book in particular that looked a little more worn, but sturdy and still intact.

A second edition, printed in 1980.

Right inside the cover, under the intro about who had accumulated the recipes and why, was a handwritten inscription made out to a woman named Kristi and signed in the author’s hand, dated 10/3/85.

I found all of this kind of charming and began to read this “comprehensive book of recipes,” put together to save the lost art of home cooking with tips, suggestions, and facts worth knowing and recalling.

Goosebumps ran across my arm as I realized she had transcribed, in their own words, the way these women prepared dishes for their families.

The rest of the recipes in the book had been accumulated by Mrs. Bryan, a retired Extension Home Economist, and used in her workshops and kitchen since the 1950s.

Mrs. Bryan had decided to save these memories from the women around her whose way of life was quickly changing.

She knew that the knowledge they had cooked and baked with would soon be lost to time.

These kitchens had seen the transformation from wood stoves to gas to modern electric ranges. From a wooden icebox to a refrigerator.

Women who had taken great pride in cooking from “scratch.”

So she named her cookbook Seems Like I Done It This A-Way, after a phrase she had heard her mom say.

You don’t stop and consider what was happening—or not happening—in those days.

From a ballad of sorts, she writes in the first three pages about all the things they didn’t have in her childhood.

I condensed it to a smaller list.

• No cars (no tires to change, gasoline to fill up a tank or drivers license)

• No electric or gas bills (Kerosine lamps for light, wood or coal for heat)

• No telephone, T.V. or radio (no 24/7 weather report)

• No daily paper (to fill your head with other peoples opinions and political views)

• A weekly big city newspaper and Sears catalog were your only news or inspiration from the outside world.

• Chores from dawn till dusk, working along side your family and neighbors.

• Dresses and shirts were handmade from flour sacks.

• Hogs were butchered and cured in a smoke house

• Home remedies were used and doctors were few and far between.

• A garden was a necessity and if fruit or animals or supplies were needed you traded and bargained with your neighbor.

• The wash was done weekly using a large pot over a fire. Wet clothes were then hung on a line or over bushes in the yard.

• Parents didn’t divorce and large families were loved and cared for in the authors world.

• No Social Security or Old Folks Home. Elderly took pride in caring for themselves and would “work their fingers to the bone” before accepting hand-outs.

Mrs. Bryan was proud of the way she had been raised and cherished the wonderful families that had been their friends and neighbors.

Praising her parents and all those who had been raised in rural communities.

“What a great job they did to make the heritage so rich and our lifestyle so great!”

I can’t help but be grateful for the work Mrs. Bryan put into her cookbook. In our online, fast paced world it can be easy to forget the traditions worth writing down.

She wasn’t just preserving food. She was preserving the rhythm of a life that had already begun to disappear.

Maybe that’s what keeps drawing me to these old community cookbooks.

Poor Man’s Pie

When I asked my mother how she made her Poor Man’s Pie she replied, “Well, it seems like I done it this a-way!”

Directions (2 Pies)

Mix a teacupful sugar (1 cup), and a pinch of salt (1/4 tsp.), and 3 big lumps of butter the size of a walnut (6 tbsp. melted) in a bowl. Add 2 teacupfuls dark corn syrup (2 cups). Next, she beat in 6 eggs, one at a time, mixing it up with 2 teaspoonfuls vanilla and mixing again. She sprinkled in 1 1/4 teacupful raisins and 1 1/4 teacupful coconut (she shredded fresh coconut). Pour into 2 unbaked pie shells and bake in hot oven at 425 degrees for 10 minutes. Then cut heat down to 375 degrees and continue baking 30 minutes longer or until a knife blade stuck in center of pie comes out clean. (She used a wood stove oven and built a fire hot enough and slowed it down by adjusting the coals and damper testing the heat with her hand in the oven from time to time.)

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Funny how things unfold in life.

One scrap of paper leads to another and the story is pieced back together like a puzzle. When I posted the first part of the story about how we started Pie Supper, a family member happened to read it and pulled up a bit of history they had saved on their camera roll to share with us.

This newspaper article talks about Dora, the mother-in-law of my husband’s grandma, who I wrote about in the first post. Dora was celebrating her 100th birthday and was acknowledged in this article for her “famous cherry pies.” It made my heart happy to read that whenever her neighbors were planning a community gathering, they would insist she donate some pies. It was concluded that the recipe for 16 Pies was probably written in her handwriting. A fun tie-in to the original story.

You see, Faye (my husband’s grandma) had a special knack for entertaining and having a house full of people all sitting around visiting in different clusters. You could move from the living room into the kitchen, through the dining room into the formal family room, and see people sitting, standing, laughing, and talking. She would usually ask you to bring a dish to the gathering to add to the meal. As everyone was helping her prep, she would pull out a blank recipe card, sit you down at her kitchen counter (Dora included), and ask you to write down the recipe. She would then have you add your name and put it into her recipe box.

As a young woman in my early 20s, I would have never guessed how valuable that memory—and saving the recipes in that box—would be. How finding a recipe from a woman that reached her 100th birthday would start a thought process in me to begin a food blog.

And now thanks to Dora, Faye, and a newspaper clipping, Pie Supper has become our own introverted way of fostering a sense of community.

Do you have your own recipe box story?
I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

Imagine it’s a hot, sticky day in the Ozarks. Way back in the days before air-conditioning and electric fans. You are working in a kitchen that is hotter than, well you know, and you need to make a mess of pies for a community get-together the next day.

I discovered a pie dough recipe in an old recipe box that belonged to my husband’s grandma. This precious hand written card unlocks the secrets to making pie dough in a hot kitchen from a world that is long gone. A world that knew how to make their own daily bread and didn’t need cookbooks, professional chefs or food influencers to tell them how to prepare a meal for their families.

The recipe above gives instructions on how to prepare dough for 16 pies. I was intrigued and began thinking about all the old country ways that would require a woman to stand in her kitchen and make sixteen pies.

Pot-lucks, church socials, family reunions (with her 10 siblings and their families, like my grandmother attended). Maybe a wedding, funeral or a community led pie supper at the local school house.

So many interesting activities that you would want to get out of your kitchen and attend, even if that required you to bake during the hottest days of the year.

I headed over to my daughter Hailey’s house, because I didn’t have a big enough mixing bowl for all the ingredients and needed a helping hand to delve into this recipe. We decided to pull out a stock pot and began dumping in the 5 pounds of flour.

Quickly realizing as the ingredients came together that we did not have the same arm strength these women from our past had. Mixing, stirring, serving, heating water to wash up the dishes, must have been an olympic sport prior to the beginning of the 1950s.

I read over the ingredients on the card, and Crisco and Karo syrup didn’t actually match my perception of what flaky pie crust ingredients should be. Pie crust without butter seems just wrong until you realize what went into producing butter in those days (ahem—more arm strength required).

Milk came straight out of your adjoining barn. The brute strength needed to churn cream into butter would have been another added job to your list. No wonder families with 10+ children were so common, every extra hand would be beneficial to get chores finished in a day.

You needed something that would be a quick fix to get the job done and Crisco and Karo syrup didn’t melt like butter, giving you more time, flexibility and consistency when mixing and prepping the pie dough.

Hailey and I took turns stirring and even got out a potato masher at one point to try and get the goopy mess into a dough ball that could be easily divided.

Maybe because we were talking and laughing too much, maybe it was because we were trying to wash the dough off our hands, but we didn’t realize until we were in the middle of it how few details the original baker left on the recipe card itself.

No directions, tips and tricks, just form into balls and wrap up the leftover dough for freezer storage.

These ladies certainly didn’t have time to mess around and would have clicked their tongues and shook their heads at the mess we made of it.

As we started to form the large lump of dough into balls it became apparent that this recipe was not made for our modern day notion of what a pie ought to look like. There was no way we would be able to get 16 pies out of this recipe at the rate we were going.

I brought over a stack of my vintage pie pans/plates and realized that many of the older pies must have been much much smaller in size. I had one that was 6 inches in diameter and the rest were 7 and 8 inches.

Before the 1950s and the ready-made 9 inch pie crusts were easily available in the grocery stores, serving sizes were often smaller. Not knowing what size tin she was using we had to eye ball the amounts to get it just right. We soon realized that without those crucial details we were unable to get 16 pie disks from the recipe.

Adjusting our thought process certainly took some time, but learning through the act of making was a valuable and memorable experience. We also made a special memory that day as we spent time in the kitchen together.

“The ordinary arts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.” – Thomas Moore

This all started because of my love of history and a collection of old cookbooks from the Missouri Ozarks, where I was raised. Eager to find a bit of paper, a hand written recipe card or a newspaper clipping stuck in the pages that the cook had left behind.

This odd collection of ephemera made me feel like I was connecting with the past. I wanted to pass that history down to my girls and capture this sweet bit of nostalgia by remembering our families working hard to prepare food for friends and neighbors.

Long, hot, hard days needed a community event that would pull them out of their daily routines.

After reading recipes like this, I find myself wanting to return to a simpler time when the kitchen was the heart of the home. So much of the knowledge was not written down but carried around in their heads and taught by the act of “doing” and “living”.

I hope you find this interesting and want to come alongside us as we look closer at these long lost bits of history that need to be preserved.

Let’s bake some pie!

I’d love to know what recipes you’ve discovered tucked into old cookbooks, leave a comment below!

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