Just flour, salt, lard, water, and fruit

I remember the actual pies beginning in the fall, during harvest, although the canning and freezing took place throughout the summer, as different items ripened.  Peas, beans, carrots, and beets were parboiled and quick frozen if not canned, and because there was more room in the basement for jars than there was in the freezer (space best left open for the side of beef, pork, and elk – processed in the garage and provided by neighbors in exchange for some custom haying), canning was more often chosen.

Honey would come in August.  Enormous silver barrels lined up with a spigot at the bottom to dispense the viscous golden heaven, warm with the sun of the summer and the millions of trips through the alfalfa fields by the humming workers.  Even as an adult the constant effort on the part of the tiny insect is staggering – as a child it was magic.  I was drawn to the honey, touching the barrels when I was alone, dipping my finger through the stream as canning jars were filled, only once attempting to access the gold myself and when, unable to shut of the spigot, the honey kept flowing with no adult in sight, I ran and hid and awaited the inevitable consequence of such a waste.  I cried, not for the spanking or the cleanup, but for the loss of the honey and the wasted effort of the bees.  My heart hurt with a silent apology to them.

The beginning of September marked the end of the hot summer of fat and lazy days.  The graineries had to be swept of old wheat and mice, apples and chokecherries picked in competition with the thousand insects and birds who also needed their sugar, garden harvested, boiling jars to burn your fingers until you couldn't feel anything at the tips.  Men would be hired to run the constant combines, billowing clouds of dust and chaff turning everything into a yellow brown.  The bath at night would turn to a sludge immediately.  Time couldn't be taken to eat or drink – all was performed on moving vehicles.  Large milk jugs filled and placed in the freezer overnight would thaw throughout the day, and each worker would return the empty vessel at night for another gallon of cold water the next day. 

Twice daily, my mother would engineer a meal for the crew and her family.  The spread varied little, but always tasted better than much anticipated holiday meals.  I don't know if it was the warmth of the sun that I knew would leave soon for the bite of the winter, or if it was the dust blowing into the dishes, or if it was the familiar yet novel experience of eating the meals in the middle of a field half stubble half ripened wheat.  Enormous apple pies made with egg crust in commercial sized flat pans, dutch ovens filled with beef stew, fried chicken, spaghetti, potato salad, and thermoses of coffee for the evening shift.  When mom would have a baby, the metal high chair would accompany us to the field, and the fat little boy would grin and coo at the blackened men as each took turns scratching his dusty cheeks and feeding him bites off their plates.

All consumed in silence with the occasional exchange about whether the white truck was still leaking oil or if operator at the elevator was staying late tonight.  Late meant another section, another few trips to Toston 12 miles down the gravel road to sell the product so we could buy school clothes, another set of tires for the trucks and cars, seed for the spring. 

 

Each year, though the harvest is done in our individual gardens and orchards, and there is no longer the dust blowing into our food, the pies are still made.  The women gather with their aprons, crates of fruit, pie pans, and bottles of wine and for two or three days my mother's kitchen is a steady organized hum of flour, lard, and sticky peach.  Scores of pies are slipped into freezer bags, each edge pinched carefully with a small prayer and three slits cut into the crust made with our hands and by feel – two to let the steam out and three because your mother did it that way.  Each is frozen, and throughout the year a woman in a different part of the state will pull it out of her freezer for a special hostess gift, a Tuesday night dessert, or just to show off her heritage. 

The next day, she will call a sister or her mother and tell them how good it was.  And it always is.

 

 

Comments

[blackbird]

This is SO lovely - a calendar of goodness.

[MontanaJen]

Thank you - I wish the photos in my brain could be cataloged in digital to share as well...