Pecan pies and my mother

[RA1]

I see that China and the weather are changing the US pecan crop this year. I do not approve.

My mother made MANY pecan pies as gifts for friends and others. At holiday time she would cook 30- 40-50 pies as gifts. She had friends who would bring pecans to her so she would not be burdened with the expense of buying so many pecans AND they wanted a pie. Our family always enjoyed those pecan pies but did not make such a fuss as some others did. NP. One loves pecan pies in the Southern tradition or one just likes them here and there.

This is the season for such and I have no objection to anyone who really appreciates this dessert. I always liked them but never revered them as some tend to do. To each his own.

Best regards,

RA1

[MsGuy]

???

OK, I'll bite...just how did China manage to spoil the US pecan crop?

[Lucky]

They like them, that's how! They are buying up pecans like never before, and, along with bad weather, pecan crops this year are down by millions of acres. With Chinese New Year at the end of January next year, pecans are a bigger part of the delicacies prized for that days long feast.

Yet I recently bought a whole bag of delicious pecans just to snack on. It's walnuts that are getting expensive too. We just have to accept the fact that as poorer countries become more prosperous, the goodies we could afford are now affordable to many of them as well. So, share and share alike!

[TampaYankee]

I think I'd like your mother.

My family has a strong pecan history although my mother made few pecan pies. We always bought several pounds in the shell and cracked away during the season.

When I was preschool my grandparents had a wild pecan in their yard. My grandfather would shell a good size box -- two or three pounds -- for us for the holidays. They were very special, shorter and narrower than the cultivated kind and a bitch to shell but they were sweeter and juicier than their bigger cousins. It was a sad year when a disease overtook the tree.

I always had an affinity for pecans and pecan pie. I particularly enjoyed a piece of pie with a good beer like Schlitz when it actually was drinkable (good in that era) -- before it was sold off to the highest bidder. I was totally unaware that people consider the combination peculiar at best and much worse than that mostly. Still love the combo of sweet and bitter. Unfortunately, my physician says ixnay to both.

(As you might conclude, my pigeon english sucks. One of the first things to go in the senior years. )

[Guest CharliePS]

My spouse is pre-diabetic, so he has become a fanatic about minimizing sugar in his diet. At our local upscale market, he couldn't find anything he wanted for Thanksgiving dessert, until the woman in the bakery dept showed him a sugar-free pecan pie. I am curious to see what he thinks of it tonight (I'll take a little taste, too). For me, the main appeal of pecan pie is its sweetness.

[Guest NCBored]

My spouse is pre-diabetic, so he has become a fanatic about minimizing sugar in his diet. At our local upscale market, he couldn't find anything he wanted for Thanksgiving dessert, until the woman in the bakery dept showed him a sugar-free pecan pie. I am curious to see what he thinks of it tonight (I'll take a little taste, too). For me, the main appeal of pecan pie is its sweetness.

I look forward to a post-prandial report.

Most recipes I'm familiar with use corn syrup or something similar, rather than 'sugar'. DId you ask about or see the ingredients list? Some 'sugar free' foods still have a lot of calories.

[Guest CharliePS]

I do not know what is in the pie, but to my surprise, it tasted quite good, and he was very pleased with it. Best not to inquire too closely why it is so.

[AdamSmith]

When I was preschool my grandparents had a wild pecan in their yard. My grandfather would shell a good size box -- two or three pounds -- for us for the holidays. They were very special, shorter and narrower than the cultivated kind and a bitch to shell but they were sweeter and juicier than their bigger cousins. It was a sad year when a disease overtook the tree.

My grandparents had that same kind of pecan tree in their yard! Exactly as you say, the nuts were smaller, aggravating to shell, but so much more flavorful.

Even better, they also had a black walnut tree. The height of creation among nuts, to my taste.

I got the job of cracking the pecans we gathered from their yard, but thankfully my mama always took on the maddening labor of hammering those damned black walnuts out of their well nigh impenetrable shells, then laboriously picking over the nut meats -- with tweezers! -- to remove the many bits of shell that invariably got into the mix.

If anyone thinks grocery store prices for pecans are outrageous, look for black walnuts some time. When you can find them at all, they are priced by the Troy ounce.

[TampaYankee]

... sugar-free pecan pie.

My god, that violates the laws of nature.!!

[TampaYankee]

My grandparents had that same kind of pecan tree in their yard! Exactly as you say, the nuts were smaller, aggravating to shell, but so much more flavorful.

Even better, they also had a black walnut tree. The height of creation among nuts, to my taste.

I got the job of cracking the pecans we gathered from their yard, but thankfully my mama always took on the maddening labor of hammering those damned black walnuts out of their well nigh impenetrable shells, then laboriously picking over the nut meats -- with tweezers! -- to remove the many bits of shell that invariably got into the mix.

If anyone thinks grocery store prices for pecans are outrageous, look for black walnuts some time. When you can find them at all, they are priced by the Troy ounce.

We do share a lot of common heritage it seems. My dad was a lover of black walnuts so of course I got early exposure, mostly through ice cream.

Growing up in Florida I'd never seen a tree with ripened fruit. We always visited my grandparents in Tennessee before the harvest season. So when I was in my mid twenties living in MD I discovered the trees grew wild along highways. Soon I was out harvesting bags of fallen fruit not knowing the task that lay ahead. LOL

The fruiting body is spherical with a diameter about the size of the largest US silver dollar ever minted. It is leathery on the outside and has tough flesh surrounding the nut. So tough that to remove it I drove my car back and forth over the fruit to soften and tear the flesh. Once the flesh was ripped away you let the nut dry for some days. After that the only way in was a hammer or vice. Goggles recommended. Then the laborious picking of the meat out of very tight quarters in the shell which lay in bits after the hammer or vice. (Hickory nuts are equally hard to assault and pick but with less tasty nut meats.)

The most surprising aspect of the episode for this novice -- the nice walnut stain that you see on wood cabinets... one source of that is those black walnut fruits. Tearing off that fruit stains your skin brown -- dark brown. The bad news, it doesn't wash off. You have to wear it off. At least I never found a solvent that worked satisfactorily.

On the plus side, I used it to stain a couple book cases. They looked beautiful.

[RA1]

I don't think there is a solvent, at least one safe for human hands, that will wash off the walnut stain. We had a kid in Junior High whose family had a BW tree. In season, he would come to school with "permanently" black hands. Being city folk, we wondered about all this but couldn't decide if he was just not careful or what. We now know how strong the stain actually is.

Best regards,

RA1

[Guest NCBored]

There were black walnut trees growing in a public cemetery not far from my childhood home. I think it took only one attempt at harvesting and shelling them for me to decide that they were too much effort (plus, the inconvenience of the stain). But I do love black walnut ice cream (which is difficult to find!) and their fglavor is baked goods is far superior to the standard walnuts we typically see!

[RA1]

Does not BR have an acceptable BW ice cream?

Best regards,

RA1

[Guest NCBored]

Does not BR have an acceptable BW ice cream?

Best regards,

RA1

Well I had to Google it, because I wasn't sure there were any Baskin-Robbins stores left here, but there are, and they do have a Black Walnut ice cream. (Interestingly, it appears to be brown - to suggest the stain?) None of the stores are convenient to me, and I tend to buy my ice cream at the supermarket.

I believe the last time I had black walnut ice cream, I found it at an ice cream parlor run by a local dairy farm.

[AdamSmith]

MAMA'S BLACK WALNUT COOKIES

2/3 cup Crisco (says original recipe, but I would use half Crisco and half butter, after they recently changed the Crisco formula)

1/2 cup granulated white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)

1 egg

Mix above thoroughly, then blend in:

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1+1/2 cup plain flour

Stir in 1 cup chopped nuts.

Preheat oven to 375 deg.

Drop dough by teaspoonful 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheet.

Bake 8-10 minutes until delicately browned. Cool slightly before removing from pan. Cookies will become crisp when cool.

Yields 4-5 dozen cookies.

[TampaYankee]

MAMA'S BLACK WALNUT COOKIES

2/3 cup Crisco (says original recipe, but I would use half Crisco and half butter, after they recently changed the Crisco formula)

Oh no,say it ain't so, Joe!! They changed the Crisco formula. Now even transfats are being adulterated, even the most iconic example.

Please tell me what did they do to our Crisco?

As an aside, I would think butter would upset the recipe, not that I don't like butter, as it contains substantial water and the Crisco I knew was totally dry in that sense.

[RA1]

I want to know if it is your note or your mama's about the butter/Crisco ratio? I just want to make sure whose advice I might be following.

Best regards,

RA1

[Guest NCBored]

Oh no,say it ain't so, Joe!! They changed the Crisco formula. Now even transfats are being adulterated, even the most iconic example.

Please tell me what did they do to our Crisco?

As an aside, I would think butter would upset the recipe, not that I don't like butter, as it contains substantial water and the Crisco I knew was totally dry in that sense.

Well, they changed it in 2007, so if you haven't noticed the change by now, it probably doesn't affect you much.

http://www.crisco.com/Promotions_News/Press_Releases/2007/zero_grams_trans_fat.aspx

[AdamSmith]

The change is described in the company press release that NCBored linked to.

The side note to the recipe is my own untested speculation -- neither mama nor I have made these cookies since Crisco changed. In fact I haven't baked anything with the "new" Crisco.

Cook's Illustrated published test results showing no difference in baking performance. But enough cooking forums contain complaints about it that I took note. Several posters said they found a small amount of water would fix the problem, thus my guess that some butter could right the balance here.

We have a bag of English walnuts lying around (poor substitute, but at hand) that I may use to test this out.

[Guest NCBored]

MAMA'S BLACK WALNUT COOKIES

2/3 cup Crisco (says original recipe, but I would use half Crisco and half butter, after they recently changed the Crisco formula)

1/2 cup granulated white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)

1 egg

Mix above thoroughly, then blend in:

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1+1/2 cup plain flour

Stir in 1 cup chopped nuts.

Preheat oven to 375 deg.

Drop dough by teaspoonful 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheet.

Bake 8-10 minutes until delicately browned. Cool slightly before removing from pan. Cookies will become crisp when cool.

Yields 4-5 dozen cookies.

Sounds yummy!

[RA1]

Honesty is the best policy. Home cooking is the best remedy.

Best regards,

RA1