In Praise of Pecan Pie: It's Not Just For Thanksgiving Anymore
Today is National Pecan Pie Day. Who knew? Since we publish a really nice pecan cookbook, my office is all atwitter about this historic day. And it's gotten me thinking about pecan pie a little more deeply than usual. Let me clarify: than ever.
Until this week, if you asked me what I thought about pecan pie, I would have told you three things: 1.) It is very fattening, and you should only eat it at Thanksgiving when it won't increase your caloric intake in any significant proportional way. 2.) If you are going to eat pecan pie, you should buy it from Goode Company and not bother with the Karo syrup 3.) If you are going to eat it and no one is looking, you should just pick the pecans off the top and leave the goo.
But now, like George Mallory presented with a mountain and having to climb it, I find myself having to ponder pecan pie. Waste of time, you think? Compare it to the facebooking and twittering that seems to be carrying me so deeply into the wee hours these days, and it might take on more cosmic import. And while it might, as drinking beer leads to smoking marijuana, lead to more ingesting of pecan pie (see thought #1 above), I suppose that is no worse than the development of carpal tunnel syndrome and the killer crick I am developing from my current bad habits.
I started wondering when, besides Thanksgiving I last ate the stuff. I didn't even have time to start getting nutritionally smug: it was just two weeks ago! I was in Mississippi, at an amazing historic inn in Jackson, called the Fairview Inn. Talk about Southern. This place is ultimate magnolia, in the best way. But here is the best part: Our room had a little alcove that was filled with books.
The books seemed to be from the library of one of those really reassuring, handsome old southern gentlemen who have the lovely accents (like Matthew McConaughey had in "A Tme to Kill" , before he became such a fan of Matthew McConaughey and so much less darling) and wear loose rumpled seersucker suits and have interesting glasses and know everything about people like Van Wyck Brooks, Carl Van Vechten, Frederick Jackson Turner and the myriad of fascinating three-named intellectuals whose 4" books' faded cloth covers make a room hum with an intellectual resonance, soothing and solid as an old spiritual.
After looking through that treasure trove of books, and regretting that I was just on a one-night drive by stay, we went downstairs to dinner. I will skip the amazing snapper with mango salsa, and just describe the Bourbon Pecan Pie. It was to die for. It had large, chewy, crispy pecan halves on top, a smooth filling with the distinct sharp tang of Jack Daniels' finest, and a delicate, buttery crust that would make a croissant blush. When I eat dessert with my husband, I draw the line. Usually the line is about in the middle, and he is not allowed to cross it, unless I say. But this night, with this pecan pie, I pulled the delicate china plate closer to my side and shielded it with my hand. "Perhaps you should consider your own," I informed him.
Luckily, he talked some sense and some unselfishness into me, and I did share that pie. But, boy, was it good. Books, pecan pie, magnolias: it's a formula for great romance. But the trick is, you have to share the pie.
So, when I think about it, pecan pie does have more meaning for me than I originally thought. So today, I celebrate it. But while I have been known to drive to Memphis for ribs, to Amarillo for steaks, and to run all the way down Santa Fe Baldy for a piece of mocha cake at Josie's, I won't be able to drive back to Mississippi to get another piece of that pie for this national holiday. I will wait until November.
But, then again, I could head down the street to Goode Company.
Happy National Pecan Pie Day to all, and to all a good night!
There are two kinds of people in this world, those who long to be understood and those who long to be misunderstood. It is the irony of life that neither is gratified.
~Carl Van Vechten
* photo is me at above mentioned Fairview Inn, the morning after the pie, reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It is not quite Van Wyck Brooks, but then again, as much as I admire them, I have no pretensions of being an erudite southern gentleman. I'm a Texan, which provides me with a wide open range of literary options and not as many rules. Besides, I could never carry off the suit, especially after all that pie.
