“New England Pie” by Robert S. Cox (Arcadia Publishing’s American Palate Series, 160 pages, $21.99)
As the weather gets colder, New Englanders naturally think of pie. Even the plethora of pastry most of us recently encountered at Thanksgiving cannot dim our enthusiasm for it.
Robert S. Cox of Easthampton discusses New Englanders’ love of what is probably our region’s foremost dish in his new book, “New England Pie: History Under a Crust.” Cox is the head of special collections at UMass Amherst and recently signed copies of his book in our area during Cider Days.
“New England Pie” is hard to characterize. It’s not precisely a cookbook, although it does feature a number of recipes. I guess I would call it a series of linked musings about pie in general and about a number of specific pies in particular.
Each of its 12 chapters talks about a pie that is welcome and/or seasonal during one month of the year.
January is devoted to French Canadian meat pie, March to maple pie, September to mock-cherry pie (made, as my Vermont grandmother could have told you, with cranberries), and December to mince pie, for example.
The pies and their recipes provide a jumping off point for Cox’s historical meanderings. His discussion of maple pie and maple syrup, for example, reminds us that maple was viewed by abolitionists as an acceptable substitute for sugar — and notes that slavery was more prevalent in New England than most of us realize.
He has fun discussing a couple of foods that are pies in name only, shepherd’s pie and Boston cream pie. If the reader still doesn’t quite understand why a casserole and a cake should go by the name “pie,” he or she still emerges from those chapters highly entertained.
Happily for me, Cox devotes his April chapter to what is perhaps my favorite spring food, rhubarb. His meditation on this vegetable disguised as fruit taught me a great deal about the history of rhubarb in this country. He even speculates on the origins of the nickname “pie plant” for rhubarb.
“New England Pie” is the sort of book that I like to leave on a bedside table for my guests. Reading a chapter at a time, those guests will find themselves informed and amused by the combination of historical knowledge, curiosity, and whimsy that Cox exhibits in his writing.
He even displays a sense of humor, with a weakness for puns, as when paraphrasing George Washington in his chapter on cherry pie he states, “I cannot tell a pie.”
Tinky Weisblat is the author of “The Pudding Hollow Cookbook” and “Pulling Taffy.” Visit her website, www.TinkyCooks.com.