pies Archives | Carol L. Douglas

The American Eagle’s stove.

A lot of my artist friends spent the weekend doing holiday painting sales. I’ve done this myself. Not everyone wants to go to the mall and brawl, but the idea of a National Day of Shopping is infectious. Selling paintings on Thanksgiving Weekend works.

However, I took the weekend off to celebrate in the Berkshires with family. Having taken no exercise and eaten way too well, I find myself going into the holiday home stretch six pounds heavier. I blame that on having a beautifully-appointed kitchen and way too many cooks.

Visitors often pronounce my kitchen in Maine poorly laid-out and equipped. There is only one work surface. It is near neither the stove nor refrigerator. I don’t care; it’s a light, bright space with running water and electricity. That makes it a great improvement over many people’s lot in life, and better than some places I’ve lived.

“Stewards of an Ocean Liner Above and Below Decks,” The Booklovers Magazine, May 1904.

Last June I sailed on the American Eagle out of Rockland. My purpose was painting, but I naturally gravitated—as most passengers seemed to—to the galley. As I made pies last Wednesday, my thoughts kept returning to how hard each task would be on board a boat. Imagine, for example, trying to put a raw pumpkin pie into a hot oven when the whole room is moving.

I have a thing for woodstoves, and the heart of the American Eagle’s galley is its Atlantic Fisherman woodstove, made in Nova Scotia. It has a rail and spring system to stop pots from flinging themselves off the stovetop in heavy weather. It also is connected to the boiler that supplies hot water to the showers.

Otherwise it works like a normal woodstove. It was fired up each morning at 4:30 by cook Matthew Weeks. In addition to regular meals for passengers and crew, he and Sarah Collins turned out pies and cakes.

Today my biggest concern is to keep my weight under control. At the time the Eagle was built, Americans were not worried about stoutness; they were concerned with acquiring, processing and storing enough food to power their highly-physical lifestyles. That was as true on boats as on land.

Pies have been known since antiquity, with both the Greeks and Romans having written recipes for their pastries. The medieval coffyn was a great way to make food in the most primitive conditions; it can be baked with a minimum of fuss and you can throw almost anything into it. Most importantly, it’s a convenience food; you can take it with you.

1870s galley stove on board the USS Constitution, Photo of the galley stove taken between 1897 and 1905 by Thomas E. Marr. (USS Constitution Museum)

In our culture, it’s a minor miracle when one can actually make a pie from scratch, never mind that it’s done with a food processor, mixer, electric stove and refrigerator. Now imagine doing that in a cramped, rolling galley, with very little room to maneuver, and an oven in which you must control the temperature by tossing blocks of fuel in.

At least Sarah and Matthew don’t generally need to worry about scurvy. Roughly 30 million people bobbed across the ocean to the Americas between 1836 and 1914, and all of them needed to eat on the way. To travel that route under sail took weeks, sometimes months. With the advent of the steamship, the time was steadily cut down. By the 1950s it was done in about a week.

My own grandfather came to this country in 1919 on the ocean liner S.S. Caserta, which had recently demobbed as a troop boat. It was capable of carrying 1200 passengers at a clip. Even at that size, the cooks were still working with woodstoves, using food and fuel they’d stowed before their voyage.

I tip my hat to the humble ships’ cooks who fed our ancestors. Without them, none of us would be here today.

“The Cliff under Owls Head,” is among six paintings heading to the Kelpie Gallery today.

I have been the assistant to some fine chefs over the years. I usually get fired. “Needs a high degree of supervision,” said one. “Too slow,” said another. So it was with relief that I allowed my ServSafe food service manager certification to expire this year. (Why I had it is a whole ‘nother story, which I shan’t tell you until the rest of the gang are safely rounded up.) It’s of little use to know that potato starch is a potential food allergen when you have no idea what to do with the stuff in the first place.

Nonetheless, as I sometimes huff, I can bake; it’s just straight-up high-school chemistry. I just don’t do it often. This means I get elected to make the pies at Thanksgiving. Well, that and the fact that nobody wants me in the kitchen on the actual day.

I also make cranberry chutney because the recipe came from my mother’s good friend. Nobody admits to actually liking it, but it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without it.

I seem to have turned into a matriarch, something I have a hard time reconciling with my youthful sex appeal. Nevertheless, there appear to be some 18 of us gathering in Massachusetts. That means a lot of pies, and I have to make them early.

Paintings waiting on the dining room table.

Paintings rising on the dining room table. No, wait, that’s bread dough that does that.

I also need to deliver some paintings to the Kelpie Gallery in S. Thomaston. Neither pies nor paintings spring fully formed from one’s imagination; they require actual time and effort, darn it. So the question was how to meet both obligations, and the answer was, imperfectly.

By evening, I had six paintings on my dining room table, which were not the complete inventory she asked for. One of them is putting up quite a fight. It’s been sent to time-out until it sees the wisdom of not changing its value structure in mid-painting. The rest look great, and I’m reminded again how a fresh set of eyes see new things in your work.

Pie crusts make me far more nervous than painting. My solution is to become extremely methodical, measuring the lard and butter into individual sets over here, and the flour and salt into individual bowls over there. The trouble is, my bedtime is 7 PM. My ancient food processor knew I was tired and was throwing tantrums. I called in backup: my unflappable husband. He measured while I laid hands on the dough and pronounced it good.

Pie crusts in progress.

Then I went to bed and debated whether eight pies is really enough for 18 people. This is a recessive Italian gene. One can hide it, just as one can straighten one’s hair, but it still surfaces at the least opportune times.

That had better be enough, I told myself grimly. I need to bake those pies, load our car, and head down the road, stopping only to drop off the paintings and the dog (hopefully in the right places). Have a lovely and blessed holiday, my friends.

Category: pies

In praise of ships’ cooks

Holiday multitasking