Down Home Cooking

Pie Anxiety

By Emily Esterson, 9-23-07

	Alma's cherry pie, center. Photo by Kip Malone.

In the midst of it all, there was the New Mexico State Fair Pie Contest. It’s taken me a couple of weeks to get down to writing about it, only because I’ve had to manage a few things in life that took precedence. Like my many jobs and my elderly mother.

Yet, in the midst of it all I couldn’t help but be drawn into the drama of apple, cherry, pecan, chocolate and peanut butter. Last year, if you’ll remember, I was a spectator, and post-contest taster (in fact, the headline of that piece was “My oh My I ate too Much Pie). I was a spectator, but so enthralled was I by the odd culture of the New Mexico State Fair Pie Contest that I vowed to enter. Granted, I’m definitely more of a bread gal than a pie gal--my breads have gotten more and more sophisticated over the years, and as I write this I’m contemplating a second attempt at a sour New York rye I made a few weeks ago. My pumpernickel has gotten quite good and my husband frequently requests the whole-wheat lemon honey loaf that’s usually gone before it cools.

I don’t really know what motivated me to go with something so exotic and weird it would completely freak out the wholesome pie-loving judges (bakery owners, even one from Pietown). I was inspired, I guess, by the Mango Chile Popsicles served in Oaxaca, Mexico--an addiction I developed during a summer there, and also in my neighborhood’s La Michoacana.  I’m intrigued by the use of chile in sweets, from chocolates to ice creams. I’ve made my mango chile pie three times since I came up with the idea, a few months back, each time futzing a bit with the filling. Mangoes, I learned, are very acidic so they don’t really hold up well to heat, turning rapidly to stringy, yellow mush. I needed a binder, so I tried tapioca, which worked okay but not great. I even toyed with entering a cheese-cakey style mango chile pie, which might have been the way to go, ultimately. The last one came out pretty well, so I was confident my filling would set and my mangoes wouldn’t be too gross. Lucky me, a few weeks ago, I bought a sandwich baggie of local red chile powder at the farmer’s market. So my cherries didn’t fall off my own tree. So my apricots weren’t picked in situ and baked right then and there into a prize winning pie. My chile came from my own neighborhood, even if my mangoes were imported from Chile the country (or somewhere...) In fact, I spent 25 minutes with the produce guy at Albertson’s picking out the perfect, slightly soft, somewhat wrinkly mangoes. I put some serious effort into my pie. I really did.

Of course I had stiff competition. Let me set the scene for you: This year, 89 pies showed up at the contest. That’s about 20 more than last year. The audience numbered 100 or so, with many friends and families in attendance. I recognized some of the bakers from last year--it’s a tradition of colliding worlds, where grandmotherly types enter alongside youngsters and men and hipsters. In the pie world, it matters not what you do for a living, what side of the street you live on, or where you buy your clothes, only that you’ve got good flake and the fruit “snuggles gently against the bottom crust.”

As the judges tasted each pie in each category, my friend Alma and I craned our necks over the crowd to see the judges’ expressions. As they took a forkful of her cherry (fruit from her mom’s Albuquerque backyard), an eyebrow raised, a nod, another forkful. Two judges conferred. They took another slice. A tiny smile spread across one judge’s face. Another nod, another raised eyebrow.

When it came to the “other fruits” category, it was my turn to crane and watch anxiously. Was there too much chile? Would that heat blow the socks off these traditional judges? Did my filling set? Had my crust turned out its flaky, buttery best? I watched. There was much crust examination: a pinch, a taste, even an enthusiast poking with the prongs of the fork. There was nodding and eyebrow raising. i was optimistic. At the very least, I’d get points for creativity. But in the end, my filling, indeed, had not set. The flavor maybe was too exotic after all.

No matter! There was celebrating and eating. Alma, rookie contest entrant, won the hotly contested cherry category, and got a prestigious second in the “other fruits” with her peach-blueberry (also locally grown). We returned to her kitchen, wielded forks, and planned for the next year. 

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