Woah Nellie … It can’t always be about you!

by Mary Jo David

The 100-year-old recipe test, usually from vintage Nellie Maxwell Kitchen Cabinet newspaper columns, is taking a sharp turn this month. In keeping with the theme of old recipes, the column will focus on the war between the pies, which dates back to when my mom married my dad. And since mom, if she were living, would be 100 years old this year, we’ll still keep the focus on 100-year-old recipes.

The pies mentioned are not fruit pies, or even sweet pies. Instead they are meat pies. The recipes’ roots are Canadian—more specifically, French Canadian—because my mom’s mom hailed from Prince Edward Island and my dad’s mom was born and raised in Pain Court, a little French-speaking town outside Windsor.

“War” is maybe a bit of a strong word. Admittedly, mom had her preference for “pork pies,” which her own mom taught her to make, and dad was raised on meat pies, or tourtières, which his mother made. But in an effort to keep the family peace, mom learned how to make both kinds of meat pie, so us kids wouldn’t grow up conflicted and would have a true appreciation for both.

These pie recipes have provided our family with rich traditions. Mom used to get together with her mom and her mother-in-law (on different days, of course!) to bake them—and always right before Christmas. House rules dictated that the pies could not be eaten until after midnight Mass. In fact, my uncle was quite a baker, and I still recall my cousin emptying his freezer after he passed away, only to find a pork pie wrapped in a Ziploc with “NOT to be eaten until after midnight Mass” written in Sharpie on the bag.

You would think a meat pie is a meat pie is a meat pie, but you would be wrong. A tourtière looks like a traditional two-crust pie with a combination of ground meats and spices inside. A pork pie, at least the ones we grew up with, are more like a pasty, and instead of ground meat, grandma’s pork pies contained chunks of seasoned pork butt.

Over the years, the tradition of making meat pies has been handed down from generation to generation. Occasionally, as cousins, we get together to make a social event out of baking pork pies. And just this year, one of my sisters assembled a few of our family to make tourtières together. It was an all-day event culminating in a challenge to see how many tourtières we could fit in the oven at once. The answer: two large pies and eight smaller pies, but I don’t suggest you try this at home, as the two large pies burned slightly. Subsequently, we baked the pies only one or two at a time.

The crusts play a huge part in distinguishing these delicious pies. Although it doesn’t exactly match our grandmother’s recipe, The Blue Jean Chef has a convenient, delicious recipe online at bluejeanchef.com/recipes/french-canadian-tourtiere and her recipe’s crust is loaded with butter, sour cream, and cheddar cheese—what’s not to love! The family pork pie recipe is unusual in that you make bread dough AND pie dough, and after your bread dough rises, you pinch pieces of pie dough off and press it into the bread dough before wrapping the dough around your pork into the shape of a pasty. The technique sounds strange, but the end result is always delicious.

I can’t emphasize enough the value of handing down family recipes and the treasured experiences that result when you make the time to get together with family and friends in the kitchen. This past year when we got together to make tourtières, the party was BYOR—as in “bring your own rolling pin.” Our sister-in-law always has something up her sleeve to make our gatherings more interesting. This year, she surprised us by pulling out a small rolling pin. She shared the story about how her father used it when he was a boy growing up on a farm in Ohio. Occasionally he’d help his mother in the kitchen using this child-size rolling pin, which rumor has it, was fashioned from an old fence post. Well that little boy is Hank Condon, who for years had a cottage right over on Half Moon Lake. And later this year, Hank will be celebrating his 100th birthday!

Hank is a great storyteller in his own right, but oh the stories that rolling pin could tell!