About pie pastry, puff paste, & pie crust American apple pie & Mock apple pie Apple Crisp & Apple Brown Betty baklava/filo & Napoleons Boston cream pie Cape Breton pork pies Chess pie Chiffon pie Cobbler Cream puffs & eclairs Gateau Saint Honore Grasshopper Key lime pie Lemon meringue pie

Mincemeat and mince pies Palmiers (aka Elephant Ears) Pecan pie Pizza Pork pies (including Cape Breton & Cheshire Portable pies: turnovers, empanadas, calzones, pasties... Pot pie Pumpkin pie Quiche Refrigerator Pie Shepherd's pie Shoofly pie Sweet potato pie Tarts

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Pie--the filling and baking of sweet (fruits, nuts, cheese) or savory (meat, fish, eggs, cheese) ingredients and spices in casings composed of flour, fat, and water is an ancient practice. The basic concept of pies and tarts has changed little throughout the ages. Cooking methods (baked or fried in ancient hearths, portable colonial/pioneer Dutch ovens, modern ovens), pastry composition (flat bread, flour/fat/water crusts, puff paste, milles feuilles), and cultural preference (pita, pizza, quiche, shepherd's, lemon meringue, classic apple, chocolate pudding?) All figure prominently into the complicated history of this particular genre of food.

The first pies were very simple and generally of the savory (meat and cheese) kind. Flaky pastry fruit-filled turnovers appeared in the early 19th century. Some pie-type foods are made for individual consumption. These portable pies... pasties, turnovers, empanadas, pierogi, calzones...were enjoyed by working classes and sold by street vendors. Pie variations (cobblers, slumps, grunts, etc.) are endless!

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the first use of the word "pie" as it relates to food to 1303, noting the word was well-known and popular by 1362.

"Pie...a word whose meaning has evolved in the course of many centuries and which varies to some extent according to the country or even to region....The derivation of the word may be from magpie, shortened to pie. The explanation offered in favour or this is that the magpie collects a variety of things, and that it was an essential feature of early pies that they contained a variety of ingredients....Early pies were large; but one can now apply the name to something small, as the small pork pies or mutton pies...Early pies had pastry tops, but modern pies may have a topping of something else...or even be topless. If the basic concept of a pie is taken to mean a mixture of ingredients encased and cooked in pastry, then proto-pies were made in the classical world and pies certainly figured in early Arab cookery."
---The Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] (p. 602-3)

American pies

"As a favored dish of the English, pies were baked in America as soon as the early settlers set up housekeeping on dry land. Beyond mere preference, howevers, there was a practical reason for making pies, especially in the harsh and primitive conditions endured by the first colonists. A piecrust used less flour than bread and did not require anything as complicated as a brick oven for baking. More important, though, was how pies could stretch even the most meager provisions into sustaining a few more hungry mouths...No one, least of all the early settlers, would probably proclaim their early pies as masterpieces of culinary delight. The crusts were often heavy, composed of some form of rough flour mixed with suet."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew Smith editor [Oxford University Press:New Yrok] 2004 (p. 272)

About pies in America, Alice Ross

• pie crust
• puff paste

"Small sweet cakes eaten by the ancient Egyptians may well have included types using pastry. With their fine flour, oils, and honey they had the materials, and with their professional bakers they had the skills. In the plays of Aristophenes (5th century BC) there are mentions of sweetmeats including small pastries filled with fruit. Nothing is known of the actual pastry used, but the Greeks certainly recognized the trade of pastry-cook as distinct from that of baker. The Romans made a plain pastry of flour, oil, and water to cover meats and fowls which were baked, thus keeping in the juices. (The covering was not meant to be eaten; it filled the role of what was later called puff paste') A richer pastry, intended to be eaten, was used to make small pasties containing eggs or little birds which were among the minor items served at banquets....In Medieval Northern Europe the usual cooking fats were lard and butter, which--especially lard--were conducive to making stiff pastry and permitted development of the solid, upright case of the raised pie...No medieval cookery books give detailed instructions on how to make pastry; they assume the necessary knowledge...Not all Medieval pastry was coarse. Small tarts would be made with a rich pastry of fine white flour, butter, sugar, saffron, and other good things, certainly meant to be eaten. From the middle of the 16th century on, actual recipes for pastry begin to appear. ..The first recipe for something recognizable as puff pastry is in Dawson [The Good Housewife's Jewell, London]...1596."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 586-7).

"Greek pistores had mastered the art of giving their bread the most extravagant forms, shaping it like mushrooms, braids, crescents, and so on...thus illustrating in advance Careme's observation a thousand years later: "The fine arts are five in number, namely: painting, sculpture, poetry, music and architecture, the principal branch of the latter being pastry." And since it is not possible for us to discuss flour without dealing with cakes, the moment has come to pose the question of what pastry consisted of in antiquity, what it looked like and how it was made. The regrettable loss of the great Treatise on Baking, by Chrysippus of Tyranus, which included detailed reicpes for more than thirty cakes, each entirely different, leaves us somewhat short of information on this important subject. But various cross-checks (not to mention the consulation of Apicius) nonetheless give us a rather good idea of what the ancient Greeks and Romans confected in this domain...the makers of Greco-Roman pastry had no knowledge of the subleties of dough, and thus having nothing like our present-day babas, doughnuts, bioches, savarins, creampuffs, millefeuille pastry, pastry made from raised dough or shortbreads...as a general rule, Greek pastry closely resembled the sort that is still found today in North Africa, the Near East, and the Balkans: the basic mixture was honey, oil, and flour, plus various aromatic substances, notably pepper. The most frequent method of cooking was frying, but pastry was also cooked beneath coals. Other ingredients included pine nuts, walnuts, dates, almonds, and poppy seeds. This mixture was mainly baked in the form of thin round cakes and in the form doughnuts and fritters...Roman pastry does not appear to have included many innovations over and above what the Greeks had already invented."
---Culture and Cuisine: A Journey Through the History of Food, Jean-Francois Revel [Doubleday:Garden City] 1979 (p. 68-9)

"Patissiere...Prehistoric man made sweet foods based on maple or birch syrup, wild honey, fruits, and seeds. It is thought that the idea of cooking a cereal paste on a stone in the sun to make pancakes began as far back in time as the Neolithic age...In the Middle Ages in France, the work of bakers overlapped with that of the pastrycooks; bakers made gingerbread and meat, cheese, and vegetable pies...However, it was the Crusaders who gave a decisive impetus to patisseries, by discovering sugar cane and puff pastry in the East. This lead to pastrycooks, bakers, and restauranteurs all claiming the same products as their own specialties, and various disputes arose when one trade encroached upon the other...Another order, in 1440, gave the sole rights for meat, fish, and cheese pies to patisseries, this being the first time that the word appeared. Their rights and duties were also defined, and certain rules were established...In the 16th century, patissier products were still quite different from the ones we know today. Choux pastry is said to have been invented in 1540 by Popelini, Catherine de' Medici's chef, but the pastrycook's art only truly began to develop in the 17th century and greatest innovator at the beginning of the 19th century was indubitably [Antonin] Careme...There were about a hundred pastrycooks in Paris at the end of the 18th century. In 1986 the count for the whole of France was over 40,000 baker-pastrycooks and 12,5000 pastrycooks."
---Larousse Gastronomique, Jenifer Harvey Lang, editor [Crown:New York] 1988 (p. 777-8)

"The bakers of France made cakes too until one day in 1440 when a specialist corporation, the corporation of pastrycooks, deprived them of the right to do so. The pastrycooks had begun by making pies--meat pies, fish pies...Romans had known how to make a kind flaky pastry sheet by sheet, like modern filo pastry, but the new method of adding butter, folding and rolling meant that the pastry would rise and form sheets as it did so. Louis XI's favourite marzipan turnovers were made with flaky pastry...From the sixteenth century onwards convents made biscuits and fritters to be sold in the aid of good works...Missionary nuns took their talents as pastrycooks to the French colonies..."
---History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat [Barnes & Noble Books:New York] 1992 (p. 242-244)

"Although the Paris pastry guild did not record its first constitution until 1440, there may well have been pastry specialties before that date. Once their guild was recognized, they began to expand the range of their production: in addition to meat pastries and tarts, they also created pastries out of milk, eggs, and cream, usually sweetened, such as darioles, flans, and dauphins. In order to become a master pastry maker in Le Mans in the early sixteenth century, one had to be able to use sugar loaves to make hypocras, a sweet, spiced wine used as an aperitif and after-dinner drink. It was not until 1566 that the king joined the Paris cookie makers guild to that of the pastry makers, and the two would be wedded frequently thereafter."
---Food: A Culinary History, Jean-Louis Flandrin & Massimo Montanari [Columbia University:New York] 1999 (p.281-2)

See also: cakes.

About puff paste
Food historians generally agree puff paste was an invention of Renaissance cooks. It was a natural iteration of shortcrust pastry. Early recipes were listed under various names. The term "puff paste" became standard in early 17th century English cooking texts.

"Puff paste is thought to have been perfected by the brilliant pastry chefs to the court of the dukes of Tuscany, perhaps in the fifteenth century. From there it made its was to the royal court of France, most likely brought by Marie de Medici."
---Martha Washington's Book of Cookery, transcribed by Karen Hess [Columbia:New York] 1981 (page156)

In England, puff paste was a natural iteration of short paste. Compare these recipes:

[1545] To make short paste for tart

[1596] "To make butter paste
Take flour and seven or eight eggs, and cold butter and fair water, or rose water, and spices (if you will) and make your paste. Beat it on a board, and when you have so done divide it into two or three parts and drive out the piece with a rolling pin. And do['t] with butter one piece by another, and fold up your paste upon the butter and drive it out again. And so do five or six times together, and some not cut for bearings. Put them into the over, and when they be baked scrape sugar on them and serve them."
---The Good Housewife's Jewel, Thomas Dawson, with an introduction by Maggie Black [Southover Press:East Sussex] 1996 (p. 71)

[1615-1660] "Of puff paste.
Now for the making of puff paste of the best kind, you shall take the finest wheat flour after it hath been a little baked in a pot in the oven, and blend it well with eggs, whites and yolks all together, after the paste is well kneaded, roll out a part thereof as thin as you please, and then spread cold sweet butter over the same, then upon the same butter roll another leaf of the paste as before; and spread it with butter also; and thus roll leaf upon leaf with butter between till it be as thick as you think good: and with it either cover any baked meat, or make paste for venison, Florentine, tart of what dish else you please and so bake it. There be some that to this paste use sugar, but it is certain it will hinder the rising thereof; and therefore when your puffed paste is baked, you shall dissolved sugar into rose-water, and drop it into the paste as much as it will by any means receive, and then set it a little while in the oven after and it will be sweet enough."
---The English Hous-wife, Gervase Markham, [W.Wilson:London] 1660 (p. 74) [NOTE: facsimile 1615 edition of this book edited by Michael R. Best [McGill-Queen's University Press:Montreal] 1998 contains this recipe (p. 98) and others. Your librarian can help you obtain a copy.]

Related foods? Choux & shortbread.

Renaissance patissiers began experimenting with lighter, more malleable doughs. Recipes for short paste ("short" in this case means butter) and puff paste enter cookbooks at this time. 17th century English cook books and reveal several recipes for pie crust and puff paste, all of varying thickness, taste and purpose. Robert May's The Accomplisht Cook [1685] listed fourteen separate recipes for paste (pastry/pie crust/puff paste). American cook books (The Virginia Housewife, Mary Randoph [1828] & Directions for Cookery in its Various Branches, Miss Leslie [1849]) contain instructions for making pies with puff paste, sometimes decorating them with cut out pieces of this same paste. Mrs. Randolph's recipe for pumpkin pudding (pumpkin pie) states "put a paste around the edges and in the bottom of a shallow dish or plate, pour in the mixture, cut some thin bits of paste, twist them and lay them across the top and bake it nicely." (University of South Carolina Press:Columbia] 1984 ( p. 154). Mrs. Porter's New Southern Cookery Book [1879] reads: "Cranberry tart...line your plates with thin puff-paste, fill, lay strips of rich puff-paste across the top and bake in a moderate oven." (p. 299). There is no illustration to show us exactly how these strips looked.

Pie crusts, Alice Ross

Apicius' recipe:

[287] [Baked Picnic] HAM [Pork Shoulder, fresh or cured] PERNAM
The ham should be raised with a good number of figs and some three laurel leaves; the skin is then pulled off and cut into square pieces; these are macerated with hone. Thereupon make dough crumbs of flour and oil. Lay the dough over or around the ham, stud the top with the pieces of the skin so that they will be baked with the dough and when done, retire from the oven and serve."
---Apicius: Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome, Edited and translated by Joseph Dommers Vehling [Dover:New York] 1977 (p. 169)

Recipes for apple pie (along with apples!) were brought to America by early European settlers. These recipes date back to Medieval times. Here is a sample from English cooking text circa 1381: For to Make Tartys in Applis. [NOTE: cofyn is a medieval word meaning pie crust!]. About pie.

"The typical American pie made from uncooked apples, fat, sugar, and sweet spices mixed together and baked inside a closed pie shell descends from fifteenth-century English apple pies, which, while not quite the same, are similar enough that the relationship is unmistakable. By the end of the sixteenth century in England, apple pies were being made that are virtually identical to those made in America in the early twenty-first century. Apple pies came to America quite early. There are recipes for apple pie in both manuscript receipts and eighteenth-century English cookery books imported into the colonies."
---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew Smith editor [Oxford University Press:New York] 2004 (p. 43)

About apple pie , Alice Ross Journal of Antiques (includes notes on pie tins)

Most apple varieties originated in the Middle East. The fruit was introduced to Europe by the Roman legions. They were actively cultivated. Apples are considered one of America's symbols because they are prominently featured in recipes throughout our nation's history. About apples:

"The Romans introduced new economic plants. They had already developed several apple varieties, with fruits smaller than those of today but larger and sweeter than those borne by Britain's indigenous wild crabs...Their apple varieties included types for good keeping, and villa owers stored them spread out in rows in a dry, well-ventilated loft...Apples were sliced into two or three pieces with a red or bone knife (since metal stained the fruit), and were put to lie in the sun."(p. 325-6)..."One of the earliest named apples was the pearmain, recorded soon after 1200. The copstard, a very large apple, was popular from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. It was sold in the streets fo London by costermongers...By the fifteenth century pippins, pomewaters, bittersweets and blanderelles had become fashionable apple varieties. Several of the medieval applese were good keeping types; indeed, apples were preferred when they had been kept awhile and allowed to mellow." (p. 330-1),,,Apples were pulped in the mortar and then put into tarts." (p. 334)
---Food and Drink in Britain: From the Stone Age to the 19th Century, C. Anne Wilson [Academy Chicago:Chicago] 1991 (p. 325-6)

"Apple. There were no native American apples when the first settlers arrived on these shores..The first apple seeds were brought by the Pilgrims in 1620, and there were plantings in New Jersey as of 1632...In 1730 the first commercial apple nursery was opened on New York's Long Island, and by 1741 applese were being shipped to the West Indies. The proliferation of the fruit into the western territories came by the hand of John Chapman, affectionately known as Johnny Appleseed. Born in Leominster, Massachusetts, in 1774, Chapman left his father's carpentry shop to explore the new territories...Apples were introduced to the Northwest by Captain Aemilius Simmons, who planted seeds at Fort Vancouver in Washington in 1824..."
---The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 8)

RECOMMENDED READING ABOUT APPLES:

• Apples: History, Folklore, Horticultures, and Gastronomy, Peter Wynne
• Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas
• Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani
• History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat
• Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith

"When you say that something is "as American as apple pie," what you're really saying is that the item came to this country from elsewhere and was transformed into a distinctly American experience."
---As American as Apple Pie, John Lehndorff, American Pie Council.

Martha Washington's recipe:

Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery (which was hand transcribed in the middle/late 17th century and in Mrs. Washington's possession) contains a recipe for an codling [apple] tarte. Note the archaic language (and lack of directions we now think of as *standard,* such as measurements and oven temps!):

[To Make] A Codling Tarte Eyther to Looke Clear or Green
"First coddle [poach] ye [the] apples in faire water; yn [then] take halfe the weight in sugar & make as much syrrop as will cover ye bottom of yr [your] preserving pan, & ye rest of ye suger keepe to throw on them as the boyle, which must be very softly; & you must turne them often least they burne too. Then put them in a thin tart crust, & give them with theyr syrrup halfe an hours bakeing; or If you pleas, you may serve them up in a handsome dish, onely garnished with suger & cinnamon. If you would gave yr apples looke green, coddle them in fair water, then pill them, & put them into ye water againe, & cover them very close. Then lay them in yr coffins [ crust] of paste with lofe [loaf] suger, & bake them not too hard. When you serve them up, put in with a tunnell [funnel] to as many of them as you pleas, a little thick sweet cream."
---Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery, transcribed by Karen Hess [Columbia University Press:New York] 1981 (p. 95-96)
[Ms. Hess adds these notes regarding codlings: "Some writers describe codlings as immature or windfall apples, and this may have been tru ate times, but the term also designated a specific apple, rather elongated and tapering toward the flower end...All sources agree that the codling was good only for cooking."]

Some American historic apple pie recipes:
[1796] American Cookery, Amelia Simmons
[1803] Frugal Housewife, Susannah Carter
[1865] Mrs. Goodfellow's cookery as it should be. A new manual of the dining room and kitchen
---pies (pps. 209-226); apple pie (pps. 215 & 220)
[1918] Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, Fannie Merritt Farmer

Related food? Turnovers.

Why do some people serve cheddar cheese with apple pie?
The practice of combining cheese, fruit, and nuts dates back to ancient times. These were often served at the end of a meal because they were thought to aid in digestion. From the earliest days through the Renaissance, the partaking of these foods was generally considred a priviledge of the wealthy. This practice was continued by wealthy dinners composed of many courses up until the 19th century. Apples and cheesemaking were introduced to the New World by European settlers. These people also brought with them their recipes and love for certain combinations. This explains the popular tradition of apple pie and cheddar cheese in our country.

"The dark ages...The main meal was taken around the middle of the day...In the evening a light supper was taken and this was always finished with a little hard cheese, for digestion's sake. Gradually the large mid-day meal was later taken until that meal, wind-drinking and the cheese supper were combined. Thus was born the British habit of finishing an evening meal with cheese; almost every other society has eaten cheese before the sweet course to finish their main wine, or instead of a sweet."
---Cheese: A Guide to the World of Cheese and Cheesemaking, Bruno Battistotti et al [Facts on File Publications:New York] 1983 (p. 14-5)

"'After meat, [serve] pears, nuts, strawberries, wineberries and hard cheese, also blanderelles, pippins [apples].' All were considered hard or astringent, and therefore suitable to close up the stomache again after eating. Even so, apples and pears when taken at the end of the meal were usually roasted, and eaten with sugar, comfits, fennel seed or aniseed 'becuase of their ventosity.' Ordinary folk ate fruit as and when they could get it. The poor people in Piers Plowman sought to poison hunger with baked apples..."
---Food and Drink in Britain From the Stone Age to the 19th Century, C. Anne Wilson [Academy Chicago:Chicago] 1991 (p. 334)

Realated food" Apple sauce

What about Mock Apple Pie?
Contrary to popular opinion, this dessert was not invented by Nabisco. Imitation apple pies made with soda crackers were the pride of thrifty 19th century American cooks. Nabisco introduced its Ritz Cracker version in 1935, on year after the product was introduced to the American public. It was an immediate hit.

"This recipe was all the rage when it first appeared in the 30s and remains popular in deepest heartland. To my great surprise, in leafing through late-nineteenth-century cookbooks, I found this Mock Apple Pie in Mrs. Hill's Southern Practical Cookery and Receipt Book [1872]

One large grated lemon, three large soda crackers, two even tablespoons of butter, two teacups of sugar, one egg, a wineglass of water poured over the crackers. These will make two pies, baked with two crusts.

[1863]
APPLE PIE WITHOUT APPLES.--
To one small bowl of crackers, that have been soaked until no hard parts remain, add one teaspoonful of tartaric acid, sweeten to your taste, add some butter, and a very little nutmeg."
Confederate Receipt Book

[1869]
"Imitation Apple Pie
Six soda-bicuit soaked in three cups of cold water, the grated rind and juice of three lemons, and sugar to your taste. This will make three pies."
---Mrs. Putnam's Receipt Book and Young Housekeeper's Assistant, Mrs. Putnam, new and enlarged edition [Sheldon and Company:New York] 1869 (p. 119)

[1879]
"Soda Cracker Pie.
Pour water on two large or four round soda crackers and let the remain till thoroughly wet. Then press out the water and crush them up together. Stir in the juice and grated peel of a lemon, with a cupful or more of powdered sugar. Put in pastry and bake.--Mrs. H.L"
---Housekeeping in Old Virginia, Marion Cabell Tyree [John P. Morton and Company:Louisville KY] 1879 (p. 413)

[1903]
"Mock Apple Pie
Two soda biscuits break in small pieces (do not roll): pour 1 cup boiling water on small pieces of butter, little salt, juice of 1 lemon and little of rind grated, a little nutmeg and you have a nice substitute for applepie. Try it, please. Old Housekeeper."
---"Household Department," Boston Daily, September 24, 1903 (p. 9)

[2008]
Ritz Mock Apple Pie

About soda crackers & Ritz Crackers.

Tasty combinations of apples, spices, sweeteners and dough were known to ancient cooks. Medieval Europeans used apples frequently. They also perfected pie. When they settled in the New World, they brought their pie recipes (and apples, cinnamon, sugar, oats & wheat, butter, etc.) with them. Apple crisp (apple betty, apple slump, apple grunt, apple cobbler, apple pot pie, fried apple pies, apple pudding, apple pandowdy) descends from this culinary tradition.

Food historians generally place apple crisp-type recipes (& other "non-traditional fruit pie variations such as cobbler) in the 19th century. Coobook authors of these times note these recipes were regarded as quick family dishes, not meant for company or holidays. Certainly, pioneers traveling west would have found apple crisp (made with dried apples) a quick and delicious alternative to more complicated desserts. Recipes for these items were listed under several different names. The name "apple crisp" appears to be a 20th century name.

About apple pie & fruit cobbler.

What is Apple Crisp/Brown Betty?
"Apple brown betty. A layered dessert of apples and buttered crumbs. The origin of the name is unknown, but the dish was first mentioned in print in 1864. It is also called "apple crisp" and "apple crust."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 10)

About Apple Slump
"Slump. A dish of cooked fruit and raised dough known since the middle of the eighteenth century and probably so called because it is a somewhat misshapen dish that "slumps" one the plate. Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, named her Concord, Massachusetts, home "Apple Slump" and recorded this recipe:

Slump
Pare, core and lice 6 apples and combine with one c(up). sugar, 1 t(easpoon) cinnamon, and 1/2 c. water in a suacepan. Cover and beat to boiling point. Meanwhile sift together 1 1/2 c. flour, t t/4 t. salt and 1 1/2 t. baking powder and add 1/2 cup milk to make a soft dough. Drop pieces of the dough from a tablespoon onto apple mixture, cover, and cook over low heat for 30 min. Serve with cream."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, (p. 297)

Survey of recipes through time:

[1853]
"Swiss Pudding.
Lay alternately in a baking dish slices of ncie tart apples; on these sprinkle sugar and the grated oily rind of a lemon, and then crumbs of stale rusks which have been soaked in milk; then more slices of apples, sugar, and crumbs of rusks; cut very thin slices of butter and lay thickly on the top; over this sift thickly pulverized sugar; bake one hour, and sent to table in the same dish."
---Cookery as it Should Be, by A Practical Housekeeper and pupil of Mrs. Goodfellow [Willis P. Hazard:Philadelphia] 1853 (p. 222)
[NOTE: there is a handwritten entry in brown fountain pen ink adding this note to the title "or Brown Betty."]

[1862]
"Jenny Lind's Pudding
Grate the crumbs of a half a loaf, butter and dish well, and lay a thick layer of the crumbs; pare ten or twelve apples, cut them down, and put a layer of them and sugar; then crumbs alternately, until the dish is full; put a bit of butter on the top, and bake it in an oven or American reflector. An excellent and economical pudding."
---Civil War Recipes: Receipts From the Pages of Godey's Lady's Book, compiled and edited by Lily May Spaulding and John Spaulding [University Press of Kentucky:Lexington KY] 1999 (p. 226)
[NOTE: Godey's Lady's Book was a popular American women's magazine of the 19th century. It published many recipes, such as the one above.]

[1877]
"Brown Betty
Put a layer of sweetened apple sauce in a buttered dish, add a few lumps of butter, then a layer of cracker crumbs sprinkled with a little cinnamon, then layer of sauce, etc., making the last layer of crumbs; bake in oven, and eat with cold, sweetened cream."
---Buckeye Cookery, Estelle Woods Wilcox, facsimile 1877 edition [Applewood Books:Bedford MA] (p. 197)

[1908]
"Apple Slump
Apple slump is another od fashioned dish, but none the less acceptable on account of its antiquity. Pare, core and quarter a dozen tart, juicy apples, turn over them a cupful of boiling water and set where they will begin to cook. Five minutes later add to the apples two cups of molasses and cook five or more minutes while you prepare a very soft biscuit dough, usiung for a pint of flour a teaspoonful of sugar, two teaspoonfuls of baking powder, a half tablespoonful of shortening, and milk to stir this over the apples, which should be tender, but not broken, cover the kettle closely and cook twenty-five minutes without lifting the cover. Serve with a hot sauce, made by heating to a cream a half cup of butter and one cup of sugar, stirring in just before using a scant cupful of boiling milk or water and seasoning to taste."
---New York Evening Telegram Cook Book, Emma Paddock Telford [Cupples & Leon:New York] 1908 (p. 113)

[1923]
"Brown Betty
(four portions)
(A delicious and economical dessert for the home meal.)
Two cups soft bread crumbs
Two and one-half cups peeled diced apples
One cup water
Two level tablespoons butter
One-half cup sugar
One level teaspoon ground cinnamon
One-fourth level teaspoon grated nutmeg
One tablespoon lemon juice.
Mix all the ingredients, and place in a buttered baking-dish. Bake in a moderate oven for forty minutes or until the apples are soft. Serve warm with Hard Sauce or Cream."
---Bettina's Best Desserts, Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron [A.L. Burt Company:New York] 1923 (p. 15)

[1924]
"Apple Crisp
2 cups sliced apples
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 cup sauce
Put apples in greased baking dish. Sprinkle cinnamon over, pour water over. Work together with a fork the four, shortening and sugar. It will be crumbly. Sprinkle over apples. Moderate oven, 30 to 40 min. Serve hot. Any creamy sauce, or Maple Syrup. Total time 45 to 55 min. (Prep. 15 min.) Serves 6 to 8."
---Everybody's Cook Book: A Comprehensive Manual of Home Cookery, Isabel Ely Lord [Harcout Brace and Company:New York] 1924 (p. 239)

[1956]
"Apple Crisp (Apple Crumble)
Place in greased 8" square pan...
4 cups sliced, pared, cored baking apples (about 4 med.)
Blend until crumbly; then spread over apple..
2/3 to 3/4 brown sugar (packed)
1/2 cup sifted Gold Medal flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 tsp nutmeg
1/3 cup soft butter
Bake until apples are tender and topping is golden brown. Serve warm with cream, whipped ice cream, or hard sauce.
Temperature: 375 degrees F. (Quick mod. Oven).
Time: Bake 30 to 35 min.
Amount: 6 to 8 servings."

"Brown Betty.
Follow the recipe above --except place alternate layers of the sliced apples and crumb mixture in pan. Pour 1/4 cup water over the top."
---Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, Revised and Enlarged, 2nd edition [McGraw-Hill:New York] 1956 (p. 231)

Related foods? Mille feuille & Napoleons!

About filo: According to the food historians, filo/phyllo is of Turkish origin. One of the most popular foods made with this kind of dough is Baklava.

It is interesting to note [but not necessarily connected] that Marie-Antoine Careme [1783-1833], the famous french pastry chef who managed Tallyrand's kitchens, was a contemporary of Napoleon I [1769-1821].

Compare these recipes

[1869]
"Neapolitan Cake
Blanch, peel, wash and dry 1 lb. of Jordan almonds; pound them in a mortar, moistening them with white of egg, to prevent their turining oily; when well pounded add:
1 lb of pounded sugar
1/2 lb. of butter
1 1/4 lb. of flour
1 small pinch of salt
the grated peel of an orange;
Mix the whole to a stiffish paste, with 12 yolks of egg, and let it rest for an hour; Roll out the paste to 3/16 inch thickness; cut it out with a plain round 5 1/2-inch cutter; put the rounds obtained on baking sheets, in the oven; When of a light golden tinge, take the rounds out of the oven, and trim them with the same cutter; When the rounds are cold, lay them one above the over spreading them over alternately with apricot jam, and red currant jelly; All the pieces being stuck together, trim the outside of the cake with a knife, and spread it over with apricot jam; Roll out some twelve-turns puff paste, 1/8 inch thick; cut it into patterns with some fancy cutters; lay these patterns on a baking-sheet; dredge some fine sugar over them, and bake them in the oven, without colouring them; Decorate the top and round the cake with these puff paste patterns; and serve.
---The Royal Cookery Book, Jules Gouffe, translated from the French and adapted for English use by Alphonse Gouffe [Sampson Low, Son and Marston:London] New edition 1869 (p. 532-3)

[1878]
"Neapolitainoes
Make enough puff-paste for a pie; roll out into a sheet half an inch thick, and cut into strips three inches long and half as wide. Bake in a quick oven. When cold, spread half fo them with sweet jam or jelly, and stick the others over them in pairs--the jelly being, of course, in the middle. Ice with a frosting made of the whites of two eggs, whipped stiff with a half a pound of sugar. Make these on Saturday. Pass with them strong, hot coffee, with a great spoonful of whipped cream on the surface of each cupful."
---The Dinner Year-Book, Marion Harland [Charles Scribner's Sons:New York] 1878 (p. 597-8)

[1972]
Napoleons-Millefueilles
For 16 pieces
Rolling out and baking the pastry
The preceding puff pastry
1 Tb softened butter
4 baking sheets, 12 by 18 inches
(Preheat oven to 450 degrees)
Roll the chilled pastry again into a rectangle; cut in half and chill one piece. Roll the remaining piece rapidly into a 13-by-9 inch rectangle 1/8 inch thick. Run cold water over a baking sheet, roll up pastry on your pin, and unroll over the baking sheet. With a knife or pastry wheel, cut off « inch of dough all around. To keep pastry from rising when baked, prick all over at 1/8-inch intervals with two forks or a rotary pastry rpicker. Chill for 30 minutes to relax dough. Repeat with the second half of the pastry. Lightly butter undersides of the other baking sheets and lay one over each sheet of dough. Set in upper-and lower-middle racks of oven and bake for 5 minutes. Life covering sheets, prick pastry again, and replace covering sheets, pressing them down on pastry. Bake 5 minutes more, then remove covering sheets to let pastry brown; if pastry begins to rise more than 1/4 inch, or starts to curl, replace coverings. Bake 18 to 20 minutes in all, or until pastry is nicely browned. Cool 5 minutes, with covering sheets, then unmold and cool on racks. (Cooled baked pastry may be frozen.

Forming and cutting the Napoleons
1 cup apricot jam forced thorugh a sieve and boiled to 128 degress with 2 Tb sugar
2 cups pastry cream (see the Eighty-third Show) or stiffly beaten whipped cream, sweetened and flavored with kirsch
1 cup white fondant icing (see The Hundred and Nineteenth Show) or powdered sugar in a sieve
1 cup melted chocolate
A paper decorating cone (see The Hundred and Nineteenth Show)
Cut the baked pastry into even strips 4 inchese wide. Paint the top of each with warm apricot, and spread about 1/4 inch of pastry cream or whipped cream on two strips; mount one one top of each other, and cover with the third. Repeat with the other three strips. Spread melted fondant icing ir a 1/8-inch coating of powdered sugar on top of each. Make a cone of heavy freezer paper or foil, cut the point to make a 1/8-inch opening, and fill cone with melted chocolate. Squeeze crosswise lines of chocolate over the top of each strip, spacing lines about 3/8 inch apart. Draw the dull edge of a knife down the middle of each strip, then draw another line in the opposite direction on each side, to pull the chocolate into a decorative pattern. Let chocolate set for a few minutes, then cut the strips into crosswise pieces 2 inches wide, using a very sharp knife held upright; cut with an up-and-down sawing motion.

Serving.
Arrange the Napoleons on a serving tray and chill and hour. Remove from refrigerator 20 minutes before serving, so that chocolate (and fondant) will regain their bloom. Napoleons are at theri best when freshly made, though you may keep them several days under refrigeration or you may freeze them."
---The French Chef Cookbook, Julia Child [Alfred A. Knopf:New York] 1972 (p. 330-2)

Other recipes similar to Boston cream pie

• Custard cakes, Mrs. Porter's New Southern Cookery Book, Mrs. M.E. Porter [1879]
• Custard or cream cake, White House Cook Book, Mrs. F. L. Gillette [1887]
• Cream Pie & Washingon Pie, Boston Cooking School Cook Book, Fannie Farmer [1896]

About cheesecake and custard.

"The Southern chess pie carries and old--even ancient--tradition of puddings and pastries with the rich texture of cheese. "Chess" is probably derived from the word "cheese," although various other theories have arisen about the origin of the name. Elizabeth Hedgecock Sparks, author of North Carolina and Old Salem Cookery, says it is "an old, old tart which may have obtained its name from the town of Chester, England." Others believe that "chess" is a corruption of the world "chest" (as in a pie chest) where pies are often kept. Then there is the story about the cook who was asked what she put in the pie, and she replied, "Anything in our chest." Or the one who was asked about the kind of pie. The answer was "Oh, jes' pie." The cheese etymology seems the most likely one, because in old cookbooks, cheesecakes and pies that were sometimes made with cheese sometimes without (referring to cheese in the textural sense--lemon card, for example, is often referred to as lemon cheese), are often included in a single category. A selection of cheeseless "cheese" pastries in Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879) are made with egg yolks, sugar, butter, milk, and lemon juice--very much like chess pie filling. Sometimes called "Cheesecake Pudding" (the filling is made of yolks, brown sugar, butter, nutmeg, and brandy or rum) is baked in a crust in small tins..."
---Around the Southern Table, Sarah Belk [Simon and Schuster:New York] 1991 (p. 367-8)
[NOTE: this author observes "sugar pies" were chess pies made with white sugar, "brown sugar pies" were the same recipe made with brown sugar and "Osgood" pies included raisins.]

"Chess pie is the classic Southern pastry, rich, sweet, and intense. The name is a corruption of cheese, for in the British culinary tradition eggs and cheese share the same terminology...The Oxford English Dictionary says a cheesecake is "a cake or tart of light pastry, orginally containing cheese; now filled with a yellow butterlike compound of milk-curds, sugar, and butter, or a preparation of whipped egg and sugar." The Southern version is the latter...The classic chess pie is pointed up with vanilla and/or nutmeg. Lemon chess, perhaps the favorite, receive just enough citrus flavor to name, but not dominate, the custard...Variations on the chess theme are Brown Sugar Pie, and with nuts, Pecan Pie."
---Biscuits, Spoonbread, and Sweet Potato Pie, Bill Neal [Knopf:New York] 1996 (p. 262)

About lemons

Cheeseless cheescake & chess pie recipes through time

[17th century]
"To make very good chee[secakes without] cheese curd
Take a quart of cream, & when it boyles take 14 eggs; If they be very yallow take out 2 or 3 of the youlks; put them into [the] cream when it boyles & keep it with continuall stirring till it be thick like curd. [Then] put into it sugar & currans, of each halfe a pound; ye currans must first be plumpt in faire water; then take a pound of butter & put into the curd a quarter of [that] butter; [then] take a quart of fine flowre, & put [the] resto of [the] butter to it in little bits, with 4 or 5 spoonsfulls of faire water, make [the] paste of it & when it is well mingled beat it on a table & soe roule it out.. Then put [the] curd into [the] paste, first putting therein 2 nutmeggs slyced, a little salt, & a little rosewater; [the] eggs must be well beaten before you put them in; & for [your] paste you may make them up into what fashion you please..."
---Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery, transcribed by Karen Hess [Columbia University Press:New York] 1995 (p. 130-1)

[1653]
To Make Cheese-Cakes
---A True Gentlewoman's Delight [England]

[1747]
"To make Lemon Cheesecakes
Take the Peel of two large Leons, boil it very tender, then pound it well in a Mortar, with a quarter of a Pound or more of Laf-sugar, the Yolks of six Eggs, and a half a Pound of fresh Butter; pound a mix all well together, lay a Puff-paste in your Patty-pans, and fil them half full, and bake them. Orange Cheesecakes are don the same Way, only you boil the Peel in tow or three Waters, to take out the Bitterness."
---The Art of Cookery Made Plain & Easy, Hannah Glasse, Facsimile edition [Prospect Books:Devon England] 1995 (p. 142)

[1803]
Cheesecakes without rennet
---The Frugal Housewife, Susannah Carter [G.R. Waite:New York] (p. 157)
[NOTE: see next page for "Potato and Lemon Cheesesake."]

[1871]
"Lemon cheesecake
Three ounces of butter, half a pound of loaf sugar, three eggs, leaving out the whites of two, the grated rind and juice of one large lemon; boil it till the sugar is dissolved and it becomes the consistence of honey; line the pan with egg-paste, in the above mixture, and bake in a quick oven."
---Mrs. Porter's New Southern Cookery Book, Mrs. M. E. Porter, Introduction and Suggested Recipes by Louis Szathmary [Promontory Press:New York] 1974 (p. 189)

[1877]
Chess pie
---Buckeye Cookery, Estelle Woods Wilcox [Buckeye Publishers:Minneapolis] (p. 187)

[1879]
"Lemon Cheese Cake
Yolks of sixteen eggs, one pound sugar, three-quarters pound butter, four lemons, boiling rinds twice before using, two tablespoonfuls powdered cracker. Bake in paste. --Mrs. Dr. E.
---Housekeeping in Old Virginia, Marion Cabell Tyree [John P. Morton:Louisville KY] 1879 (p. 414)

[1884]
Chess pie
---Boston Cooking School Cook Book, Mrs. D. A. Lincoln [Roberts Brothers:Boston] (p. 324-5)

Related food? Shoofly pie (based on brown sugar & molasses).

Cobbler is an amalgam of European tradition and American ingenuity. According to the food historians, cobbler (peach, apple, plum, cherrry, etc.) originated in the American West during the second half of the 19th century. It was a deep-dish thick, quick crust filled with whatever fruit (fresh, canned, dried) was on hand. Necessity required westward-bound pioneer cooks to adapt traditional oven-baked pie recipes to quick biscuit treats that could be cooked in Dutch ovens. Pot pie is a closely related recipe.

Why call it cobbler?
Our dictionaries, word history books and food history reference sources generally agree the term cobbler, as it applies to a fruit dessert covered with rough biscuit dough, originated in the American west in the middle of the 19th century. Where did the name come from? Most of our books simply state "source unknown." The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology/Barnhart adds: "A kind of pie baked in a deep dish,. 1859, American English, but perhaps ultimately related to, or even developed from unrecorded use of cobeler, n. 1385, a kind of wooden bowl or dish." (p. 184)

In the absence of documented evidence, educated guesses may be constructed. It is possible the name derived from the look of the final product. Cob/cobble/cobber convey many meanings in the English language. Elizabeth David (English Bread and Yeast Cookery)tells us traditional English "cob" bread was small, brown and round. Similar, perhaps to cobbletones. Perhaps this is what the the first cobbler resembled?

While American dictionaries date the first print instance of the term "cobbler" in 1859, Nancy Baggett (fellow IACP member and cookbook author) recently located this older reference. Proving? Culinary history sleuthing is often the result of careful reading and research.

[1839]
"A Peach Pot-Pie.
A Peach pot pie, or cobler, as it is often termed, should be made of clingstone peaches, that are very ripe, and then pared and sliced from the stones. Prepare a pot or oven with paste, as directed for the apple pot-pie, put in the prepared peaches, sprinkle on a large handful of brown sugar, pour in plenty of water to cook the peaches without burning them, though there should be but very little liquor or syrup when the pie is done. Put a paste over the top, and bake it with moderate heat, raising the lid occasionally, to see how it is baking. When the crust is brown, and the peaches very soft, invert the crust on a large dish, put the peaches evenly on, and grate loaf sugar thickly over it. Eat it warm or cold. Although it is not a fashionable pie for company, it is very excellent for family use, with cold sweet milk." ---the Kentucky Housewife, Lettice Bryan, facsimile reprint of 1839 edition stereotyped by Shepard & Stearns:Cincinnati [Image Graphics:Paducah KY] (p. 268)

The Dictionary of Americanisms traces the first instance of the word cobbler (as it applies to a pie dish) in print to 1859: "Cobbler...a sort of pie, baked in a pot lined with dough of great thickness, upon which fruit is placed."

"Another kind of cobbler is a western- deep-dish pie with a thick crust and a fruit filling. This dish is called bird's nest pudding or crow's nest pudding in New England; it is served with a custard by no topping in Connecticut, with maple sugar in Massachusetts, and with a sour sauce in Vermont."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 87)

"Cobbler, also cobbler pie: A deep-dish fruit pie with crust, often biscuit dough, on the top and sometimes lining the pan. Chiefly South, South Middle (parts of the United States.)."
---Dictionary of American Regional English, Frederic G. Cassidy, editor, [Belknap Press:Cambridge MA: 1985] Volume 1 (p. 704)
[NOTE: This book has a map of where cobbler is popular.]

[1877]
Plum cobbler
[NOTE: the end of this recipe references peaches, both canned and fresh.]

Food historians generally agree Gateau Saint Honore belongs to Paris (because St. Honore is the patron Saint of patisserie and has a street name in Paris after him), but are collectively vague regarding the period. Neither do they attibute the creation of this confection to a specific chef or agree on the history behind the name. Chiboust (for whom the creme used in this recipe was named) was a mid-19th century patissiere. Quite the mystery, yes?

The ingredients and method of Gateau Saint Honore date the possibility of this recipe to the 17th century. Primary evidence confirms master Parisian patissieres often employed choux and cream to effect grand dessert presentations. Croquant was "invented" at this time. Chantilly creme (sometimes referred to as Chiboust) was also "invented" in the 17th century. We find nothing close to Saint Honore in La Varenne [1651], but Ude's French Cook [1828] contains several recipes which might been precursors. These are generally composed of choux artfully arranged and filled with chantilly cream. Unlike Gateau Saint Honore, however, do not employ shortcrust.

Escoffier [1903] contains a recipe for Creme a Saint-Honore (#4345), but not (at least that we can find) Gateau Saint Honore. Neither does it show up in Richardin [1913]. The original edition of Larousse Gastronomique [1938] includes both description and recipe (en Francais, we can send if you like).

ABOUT GATEAU SAINT HONORE

Gateau Saint Honore, a confection of two kinds of pastry with a cream filling. Shortcrust pastry provides a firm base for the soft and flexible choux pastry piled round it on top. Glazed profiteroles are stuck to the ring of choux. The centre of the ring is filled with a creamy mixture (creme chiboust) stiffened with gelatin and lightened with stiffly beaten egg whites. This cake is sometimes said to have been named after St. Honore, the patron saint of bakers, but others say that it owes its name to the rue Saint-Honore in Paris, where it was created (possibly as a development of some existing product) in 1846 by a patissiere, Chiboust. The learned authors of the Ile-de-France volume listed under IPCF (1993) explain why they regard the matter as an unsolved mystery."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 333)
[NOTE: Mr. Davidson's reference to IPCF (1993) refers to Inventaire du Patrimoine Culinare de la France, 27 volumes published between 1992-2000. The Ile-de-France contains the information on gateau St. Honore. We don't have ready access to this volume, but your librarian may be able to locate/borrow a copy.]

"Saint Honore, a gateau consisting of a layer of shortcrust pastry (basic pie dough) or puff pastry on top of which is arranged a crown of choux pastry, which is itself garnished with small choux glazed with caramel. The inside of the crown is filled with Chiboust cream (also known as Saint Honore cream') or Chantilly cream. A Parisian gateau, Saint Honore takes its name from the patron saint of bakers and pastrycooks. It is also said that its name comes from the fact that the pastrycook Chiboust, who create the cream which is used in it, set himself up in the Rue Saint-Honore in Paris."
--- Larousse Gastronomique, Completely revised and updated [Clarkson Potter:New York] (p. 1016)

About pastry
---includes notes on shortcrust, puff paste, choux, and profiteroles

Certainly, such a popular pie would have much available in the way of history. Not! Food historians confirm the popularity of limes (a gift from 16th century Spanish explorers), presence of pies (an "Old World" recipe), and eager acceptance of condensed milk (mid-19th century). Presumably, the "inspiration" for Key Lime pie is Lemon meringue.

"According to John Egerton (Southern Food, 1987), Key Lime Pie was known in the Florida Keys "as far back as the 1890s." It don't doubt it a bit because in those pre-refrigerator days, fresh milk was a poor keeper. What local cooks had learned to rely on was the sweetened condensed milk Gail Borden had begun canning shortly before the Civil War."
---The American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century, Jean Anderson [Clarkson Potter:New York] 1997 (p. 377)
[NOTE: This book has a recipe for Key Lime Pie.]

"Key lime pies were first made in the Keys in the 1850s. Jean A. Voltz, in The Flavor of the South (1977), explains that the recipe developed with the advent of sweetened condensed milk in 1856. Since there were few cows on the Keys, the new canned milk was welcomed by the residents and introduced into a pie made with lime juice. The original pies were made with a pastry crust, but a crust made from graham crackers later became popular and today is a matter of preference, as is the choice between whipped cream and meringue toppings. There are three recipes for Key lime pie in The Key West Cook Book (1949), only one of which refers to a graham-cracker crust, and two of which do not require the pie to be baked. One has no topping, one whipped cream, and one meringue."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 184)

Here are the 1949 recipes referenced above:

"Key Lime Pie
4 eggs
1 can condensed milk
1/2 cup lime juice
Break eggs in bowl and beat lightly. Add condensed milk and beat until well blended. Add lime juice slowly mixing well. Custard will thicken as you add lime juice. Pour into baked pie shell and top with meringue. Bake in slow oven until brown.

Meringue
Beat whites of 2 eggs unitl stiffl. Add 3 teaspoon sugar and 1/2 teaspoon baking powder beating constantly. Put on custard and brown.--Eva Navarro (Mrs. Dan Navarro)."

"Key Lime Ice Box Pie
1/3 cold water
1/2 tablespoon gelatine
4 eggs
3 tablespoons lime juice or more. (Lemon juice and 1/3 lemon rind may be used)
1 cup whipped cream
1 cup granulated sugar
few grains salt
Set gelatine to soak in 1/3 cup water. Place egg yolks, lime juice, and 1/2 cup sugar in round bottom bowl. Place over water kept at boiling point, whipping until it cooks firm and creamy.Remove from stove and fold in gelatine. When cook add stiffly beaten egg whites which have been combined with other 1/2 cup sugar. Our into large baked pastry and set in ice box for 2 hours or more. Whip cream & spread over top of pie.--Annie Hicks.

Heavenly Lime Pie
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. Cream of Tartar
4 eggs separated
3 tbsps. Lime juice
1/8 tsp salt
1 pint Whipping cream.
Sift one cup sugar and cream of tartar. Beat egg whites stiff and gradually add sugar. Beat until thoroughly blended. Grease lightly 1 deep 9" or 10" pie pan. Spread above mixture into pan but do not spread too close to rim of pan. Bake in middle of oven for 1 hour at 275 degrees F. Cool. Beat egg yolks slightly with 1/2 cup sugar, lime juice and salt. Taste for tartness. Cook over boiling water until very thick. Cool. Whip cream and fold half of it into the thick lemon mixture. Spread in shell. Spread remaining cream over top. Chill 12 hours or more. Serves 8. --Mrs. B.C. Moreno."

"Lime Pie Supreme
(4 large pies)
1 pound butter
4 cups sugar
2 dozen eggs
Juice of 15 to 18 limes, to taste.
Cream butter and sugar and add eggs one at a time, reserving the whites of 12 for meringue. Beat, smooth and add the juice of the limes to desired tartness. Place mixture in pie shells which have been slightly browned, and bake at 400 degrees till filling is firm. Heap with meringue, and return to oven till meringue is brown.--Mrs. John B. Hayes"

"Fluffyruffle Lime Pie
4 eggs
4 tablespoons sugar
Grated rind and juice of 2 small limes
Beat sugar and yolks of eggs together, add juice and grated rind. Cook in double boiler until thick. Remove from fire, fold in whites, stiffly beaten, to which you have added 3 tablespoons sugar. Pile lightly in baked pie shell, chill and serve..--Mrs. John Wardlow"
---Key West Cook Book, Woman's Club, Key West Florida [1949] (p. 215-218)

About consensed milk About Key (Mexican) limes

Frozen lime pie is an interation of Key lime pie. The oldest mention we find in print for the frozen pie implies the recipe existed at least as early as the 1970s. Of course, most recipes exist long before they appear in print.

"Mabel Brotzman asked for help in finding a lost recipe for a Key Lime Pie that can be frozen for serving later. We received dozens of replies from readers. Marcia H. Kenward said she'd clipped the recipe from The Miami Herald "at least 30 years ago." That recipe calls for stirring in 1 to 2 drops of green food coloring if desired. As Dot Schuck of Key Largo puts it: "Most folks from up North think Key lime should be green." The vintage recipe calls for separated eggs in the filling, which makes it more involved but airier in texture. The more popular recipe, at least as far as our mail indicates, is made with frozen whipped topping. Barbara Bliss sent her boyfriend Dave's incredibly easy recipe, which is similar to many we received. Tips: If you are making your own graham cracker crust, try brushing egg white on the top just before baking to keep the crust crisp. Remove the pie from the freezer no more than 5 minutes before serving. Paula Prouty of Key West and Scarborough, Maine, where she is a newspaper food editor, simply makes a regular Key lime pie, with a meringue top, and then freezes it.

Dave's Frozen Key Lime Pie
2 graham cracker pie crusts
8 ounces Key lime juice
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
2 8-ounce tubs frozen whipped topping, defrosted
Bake pie crusts following package instructions and cool. Beat together the Key lime juice and condensed milk. Fold in 1 tub of the whipped topping. Divide filling into the 2 crusts. Top both pies with the remaining frozen whipped topping. Chill, or freeze as desired. Makes 2 pies, 16 servings. Per serving: 338 calories (40 percent from fat), 15 g fat (8.1 g saturated), 11.3 mg cholesterol, 4 g protein, 45.4 g carbohydrates, 0.5 g fiber, 214 mg sodium.

Vintage Frozen Key Lime Pie
2 eggs, separated
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup lime juice
1 teaspoon grated lime zest (if desired)
1/2 cup sugar
1 graham cracker pie crust
Beat egg yolks until thick and lemon-colored. Combine with sweetened condensed milk. Stir in lime juice and zest, stirring until mixture thickens. Beat egg whites until they stand in soft peaks. Gradually add sugar and continue beating just until mixture stands in firm peaks. Do not overbeat. Fold egg whites into lime mixture. Pour into crust and freeze six hours or overnight. Makes 8 servings. Per serving: 431 calories (30 percent from fat), 14.5 g fat (5.6 g saturated), 75.8 mg cholesterol, 8.2 g protein, 69.4 g carbohydrates, 0.5 g fiber, 271 mg sodium.

According to the food historians, lemon flavored custards, puddings and pies have been enjoyed since Medieval times. While Renaissance European cooks used whisked egg-whites in several dishes, it was not until the 17th century that they perfected meringue. Lemon meringue pie, as we know it today, is a 19th century product.

ABOUT LEMON COOKERY
Lemons (and other citrus fruits) were known to ancient cooks. According to the food historians, their acid flavor was appreciated and incorporated into many dishes. These fruits were expensive and usually preserved (dried) then used in cakes reserved for special occasions. Fruitcake, great bride's cake, Gallette du Roi are examples. The lemon cakes we know today trace their roots to Medieval European cooks. These cooks often used "perfumed waters" (such as rosewater) to flavor their foods and for medicial purposes. Recipes for these "perfumes" were later employed to make fruit flavorings. Orange water (aka orangeflower water) was popular in France during the seventeenth century. Culinary evidence confirms cakes, cookies, puddings, cheesecakes, tarts, jellies, and other sweet desserts often incorporated orange flavoring. Lemon recipes followed, often as a simple ingredent substitition for oranges. 18th century English cookbooks list lemon cakes as a recipe variation for Orange Cakes (Mrs. Raffald, The Experienced English Housekeeper [1769]. By the 19th century, lemon cakes were standard fare in American cookbooks. Sample recipe here (1877).

ABOUT LEMONS

"Lemon The fruit of Citrus medica, a tree whose original home may have been in the north of India. It only reached the Mediterranean towards the end of the 1st century AD, whemn the Romans discovered a direct sea route from the sourthern end of the Red Sea to India. Tolkowsky...adduces complex arguments in favour of this view (as against the earlier view that the lemon did not arrive until the 10th century), and refers to frescos found at Pompeii (and therefore prior to AD 70) which show what he regards as indisputably lemons; also a mosaic pavement probably from Tusculum...of about 100 AD in which a lemon is shown with an orange and a citron. Thus the fruit which can reasonably be regarded as the most important for European cookery was a comparatively late arrival. Nor was its use in cookery, as an acid element, appreciated at once. Nor, indeed, was there a Latin word for lemon. It seems likely that in classical Rome the fruit was treated as a curiosity and a decoration, and that lemon trees were not grown in Italy until later. The Arabs seem to have been largely responsible for the spread of lemon cultivation in the Mediterranean region...Arab traders also spread the lemon eastward to China...During the Middle Ages lemons were rare and expensive in N. Europe, and available only to the rich...Lemons reached the New World...in 1493, when Columbus, on his second voyage, established a settlement on Haiti."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 449)
[NOTE: this book has much more information on the history of lemons than can be paraphrased here. Ask your librarian to help you find a copy of this book.]

"The lemon...owes its name entirely to the botanists, for it was unkown to classical writers. However, it was widely used from the Middle Ages onwards. It was regarded as an essential in the seventeenth century...Originally from the foothills of the Kashmir, the lemon did not reach China...until around 1900BC. In China, it was given the name limung, which it retained almost unchanged when it moved on to Persia and Media. From the tenth century AD onwards the Arabs, who called it li mum...took it all around the Mediterranean basin, eastwards to Greece by way of Constantinople, westwards to Spain by way of Maghreb and Fezzan. The Spanish and Russians retained the name limon, which becomes lemon in English..."
---History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat [Barnes & Noble Books:New York] 1992 (p. 662)

"Lemons were one of the most sought after fruits in early modern Europe. Being associated with sunny southern Europe they were considered healthy, much the same way we think of Mediterranean foods today. Their juice was used as a condiment, especially on fish because its acidity was thought to cut thorugh the "gluey humors" abounding in seafood, making them more digestible. Northern Europeans generally had to import lemons, but eventually a way to grow them indoors was devised. Lemon peel, grated or candied lemon was also a typical garnish."
---Food in Early Modern Europe, Ken Albala [Greenwood Press:Westport CT] 2003 (p. 51-2)

"Lemons and scurvy
In the eighteenth century and earlier, citrus juices were among many articles of diet used in attempts to find a cure for scurvy...Lemon juice was favored by the early Spanish explorers as an antiscorbutic, and Dutch and English voyagers also included it in their ships' stores, although it was more likely to find a place among the medicines than as a regular article of diet....Captain Cook...was supplied with lemon juice as a concentrated syrup, with most of the vitamin C unwittingly boiled out in the preparation..."
---Cambridge World History of Food, Kenneth F. Kiple & Kriemhild Conee Ornelas, [Cambridge University Press:Cambridge] 2000 Volume 1 (p. 704)

Lemons, Fruits of Warm Climates/Morton

About lemons in 19th century America

"Legend has it that Columbus brought lemon seeds to Florida, and Spanish friars grew the fruit in California, where it flourished in the middle of the nineteenth century--especially in Eureka (possibly first cultivated in California or brought from Sicily)...In 1874 James W. Parkinson, writing of American dishes at the Philadelphia Centennial, noted that "citron"...a lemon-like fruit, had "lately been transplanted in California..." In 1934 Irvin Swartzberg of Chicago began selling gallon bottles of fresh lemon juice to bars and restaurants, and, after perfecting a method of concentrating the juice with water, sold the prdouct in the market under the name Puritan-ReaLemon."Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 182)

Grocer's notes, circa 1883

"Lemon.--The fruit of a tree closely related to the orange, citron and lime...The lemon grows wild in the north of India and has been long cultivated among the Arabs who carried its culture into Europe and Africa. It is now naturalized in the West Indies and other parts of tropical America...The pulp of the fruit abounds in citric acid. There is, however, a variety cultivated in the south of Europe, the juice of which is very sweet. The acid juice of the common kind is laregley employed in preparing the beverage known as lemonade...Lemons vary very much in size, and the ordinary boxes contain from two hundred and forty to four hundred and twenty lemons each; the brands L and LL being used to designate sizes, single L;'s being the largest. They are wrapped separately in order to prevent decay by crushing together. Thin-skinned lemons are the juiciest. There are over thirty varieties of lemons in cultivation, but they are generally classified according to the place of growth or shipping. The principal importations into this country are from Sicily (Messina lemons) and from Valencia. The lemon can be successfully grown in Florida and California--products which are receiving great attention. The oil of lemon is largley used in cooking and confectionery; the extract of lemon, sold for domestic use, being simply a dilute solution of the oil in alcohol. The pure juice of the lemon is extremely efficacious in attacks of acute rheumatism."
---The Grocer's Companion and Merchant's Hand-Book [New England Grocer Office:Boston] 1883 (p. 74-5)

These notes illustrate the growing popularity of lemons, as imported fruit, in the 19th century.
"Volume of Average Annual Inports and Exports at Cincinnati by Canal, River, and Railway for Five-Year Intervals, 1846-1860 (years Ended August 31). Seleccted Textiles and Groceries:

Lemons: Unit=box
Imports (in thousands)
1846-1850=3.1
1851-1855=5.9
1856-1860=9.9
SOURCE: Western Prices Before 1861, Thomas Senior Berry [Harvard University Press:Cambridge MA] 1943 (p. 320)

How much did they cost?

[1888]
The cargo of 2,400 boxes of oranges and 5,500 boxes of lemons that the steamer Iniziativa brought from Messina was sold yesterday by Brown & Seccomb of 25 State -street. Prices ofl emons had been steadily advancing for over a week, until an advance of $1 per box was reached, and a story was started that ta storm in the Mediterranean had shaken down a very large number of lemons form the trees at Messina, and that consequently there was a scarcity of that fruit, as the shaken lemons had rotted on the ground. Mr. Brown, however, denied that there had been any storm about Messina, and said that the advance in price was owing to the light receipts and the warm weather. There were plenty of lemons in Messina, and as soon as prices advanced here the shippers there would sent on all that were needed. After the first sale yesterday prices declined 50 cents per box."
---"Lemons Going Down," New York Times, June 15, 1888 (p. 8)

[1895]
"There has been a considerable advance in the price of lemons, owing partly to the increased demand for them, caused by the hot weather and partly to a shortager in the Sicilian crop. A box of lemons which would sell in ordinary seasons for $2.50, is now worth between $5 and $6. The dealers in this crop feel sure that nothing but prolonged cool weather can diminish the present price of the fruit."
---"Lemons Advance in Price," New York Times, June 21, 1895 (p. 2)

Lemon prices from 1910-2004 are reported in the Historical Statistics of the United States/Cambridge University Press (Volume 4)

ABOUT LEMON MERINGUE PIE IN AMERICA

"Lemon-meringue pie, made with lemon curd and topped with meringue, has been a favorite American dessert since the nineteenth century."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 182)

Elizabeth Coane Goodfellow (1767-1851) is credited for introducing lemon meringue pie to America in her Philadelphia shops [The Larder Invaded: Reflections on Three Centuries of Philadelphia Food and Drink, Mary Anne Hines, Gordon Marshall & William Woys Weaver, Historical Society of Philadelphia, Philadelphia 1987 (p. 66)

Where is lemon meringue pie considered a *traditional* dessert? Many places are known for this particular pie. Many of them are in the South. Lemons are a favorite component of southern cooking. Think lemon chess pie and lemonade.

"Lemon meringue pie has been around a long time in the South and most likely grew out of the vast repertoire of puddings, whose popularity pies eclipsed in the late nineteenth century. It is remarkably similar ot the Queen of Puddings."
---Biscuits, Spoonbread, and Sweet Potato Pie, Bill Neal [Alfred A. Knopf:New York] 1996 (p. 275)

"A pie can always be turned out for dessert as long as there are lemons in the house, and American cooks have devised many recipes. President Calvin Coolidge is said to have favored a simple lemon custard pie. The even more common lemon meringue, ever present in public eating places, is one more dish served at Boston's Parker House that has become a classic in the American repertoire. And a special version gained fame swiftly when it went on the menu of the Lion House Social Center in Salt Lake. The following version is based on a method worked out in the 1960s by the late Michael Field in collaboration with Dr. Paul Buck, a food scientist at Cornell University. The determined Mr. Field devoted days to making lemon meringue pie after another until he eliminated the "weeping" common to meringues that sit around on counter; his trick was to use a little calcium phosphate powder, a food-grade phosphate product available in drugstores and suggested by Dr. Buck."
---American Food: The Gastronomic Story, Evan Jones [Vintage Books:New York] 1981, 2nd edition (p. 465-6) [includes recipe]

Many 17th and 18th century cookbooks contain recipes for lemon custard, pudding (sometimes served in a puff-paste base), pies, and tarts. These are often topped with pulverized sugar. It is not until the middle of the 19th century we find recipes that would produce lemon meringue pie, though they are not titled as such:

[1769] "A Lemon Pudding
Blanch and beat eight ounces of Jordan almonds with orange flower water. Add to them half a pound of cold butter, the yolks of ten eggs, the juice of a large lemon, half the rind grated fine, work them in a marble mortar or wooden basin till they look white and light. Lay a good puff paste pretty thin in the bottom of a china dish and pour in your pudding. It will take half an hour baking."
---The Experienced English Housekeeper, Elizabeth Raffald, with an introduction by Roy Shipperbottom [Southover Press:East Sussex] 1997 (p. 82)

[1847] "Meringue Pie
This may be made by adding to a nicely made and baked tart, a nice whip, made as follows: to the white of a fresh egg, add two tablespoons of finely pulverized white sugar; flavor with lemon, vanilla, or any other flavor, which may be liked, whip the same as for kisses, then with a knife lay it on the top of the tart, and whape it nicely off at the edges, then set it into an oven and close it for a few minutes until it is delicately browned."
---Mrs. Crowen's American Lady's Cook Book, Mrs. T. J. Crowen [Dick & Fitzgerald:New York] 1847 (p. 256)
[NOTE: A recipe for lemon pie immediately precedes this recipe. It has both top and bottom crust.]

[1871] "Lemon Custard Pie No. 2
Grate one-half outside of a lemon and squeeze out the juice, yolks of two eggs, two tablespoonsful heaped of sugar, half a cup of water, one teaspoonful of butter; stir well, and bake in a deep dish lined with crust; beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth; stir in two tablespoonsful of pulverized sugar and spread over the top of the pie as soon as it is baked set in the oven till the top is nicely browned."
---Mrs. Porter's New Southern Cookery Book, Mrs. M. E. Porter [1871] (p. 296)

[1879] "Lemon Pie.
Yolks of four eggs, white of one, beaten very light; grated rind and juice of one large lemon; five heaping tablespoonfuls of sugar. Bake in an undercrust till the pastry is done. Froth the whites of three eggs with five tablespoonfuls sugar. Spread over the pies and bake again till brown.--Mrs. Col. S."
---Housekeeping in Old Virginia, Marion Cabell Tyree [1879] (p. 406)

[1882] "Lemon Pie (no. 3)
3 eggs
1 great spoonful butter
3/4 cup white sugar
Juice and grated peel of lemon
Bake in open shells of paste.
Cream the sugar and butter, stir in the beaten yolks and the lemon, and bake. Beat the whites to a stiff meringue with three tablespoonfuls powdered sugar and a little rose-water. When the pies are done, take from the oven just long enough to spread the meringue over the top, and set back for three minutes. This mixture is enough for two small, or one good-sized pie. Eat cold."
---Common Sense in the Household: A Manual of Practical Housewifery, Marion Harland [1882] (p. 350)

[1885]
"Lemon pie.
Grate the rind and express the juice of three lemons; rub together a cup and a half of powdered sugar and three tablespoonfuls of butter; beat up the yolks of four eggs, and add to the butter and sugar, lastly the lemon; bake on a rich puff paste without an upper crust. While the pie is baking beat up the whites of the four eggs with powdered loaf sugar, spread it over the top of the pie when done; then set back in the oven a few moments to brown slightly."
---La Cuisine Creole, second edition [F.F. Hansell & Bro:New Orleans] 1885 (p. 191)

ABOUT MERINGUE

Food historians tell us the precursor for meringue was a dish called "Snow" (aka snow eggs). This frothy dessert was popular in Medieval and Renaissance Europe. Recipes can be found in cookbooks through the 19th century. The method is quite like that employed to make meringue.

Compare this 17th century French recipe with classic meringue recipes.

"Snow eggs.
Boile some milk with a little flower water well allyed, then put it in more than half of one dosen of whites of eggs, and stir well all together, and sugar it. When you are ready to serve, set them on the fire again and glase them, that is, take the rest of your whites of eggs, beat them with a feather, and mix all well together; or else fry well the rest of your whites, and powre them over your other eggs. Pass over it lightly an oven lid, or the fire-shovell red hot, and serve them sured with sweet waters. You may instead of whites, put in it the yolks of your eggs proportionable, and the whites fried upon. The cream after the Mazarine way is make in the same manner, except you must put no whites of eggs on it."
---The French Cook, Francois Pierre, La Varenne, translated into English in 1653 by I.D.G., with an introdution by Philip and Mary Hyman [Southover Press:East Sussex] 2001 (p. 98-99)

Who "discovered" meringue?

"Meringue...an airy, crisp confection of beaten egg white and sugar. The word probably entered French from German, as did many other French words ending in -ingue. It first appeared in print in Massailot [1691], although earlier recipes for the same thing but without the name had been published. The name travelled to England almost at once and first appeared in print there in 1706....It seems to have been only in the 16th century that European cooks discovered that beating egg whites, e.g. with a whisk of birch twigs (in the absense of any better implement), produced an attractive foam. At first the technique was used to make a simple, uncooked dish called snow, made from egg white and cream. However, cooking such a foam would not have resulted in meringue, for any fat in the mixture, as represented by the cream, prevents the egg whites from taking on the proper texture...When true meringue made its appearance in the 17th century, it still lacked its name and was often called "sugar puff.""
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 197)

"Meringue. The name for this confection of sugar and beaten egg white is a direct borrowing from French "meringue." but beyond that its origins are obscure. Legend has it variously that it was named after the town of Meringen in central Switzerland of after the Saxon town of Mehringyghen, seat of the operations of the Swiss pastrycook Gasparini who supposedly invented it there in 1720. However, the fact that the word had even entered the English language before this (it is first mentioned in Edward Phillip's dictionary The New World of English Words, in John Kersey's 1706 edition) casts considerable doubt on the story. In fact, mixtures of beaten egg white and sugar cooked in a slow oven had been popular since the early seventeenth century (they were called "Italian biscuit"), and it was the great increase in the proportion of egg white which marked the inception of the superlight meringue towards the end of the century."
---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 211)
[The 2008 online Oxford English Dictionary confirms the earliest Englis print reference for meringue dates to 1706:
1. a. A light mixture of stiffly beaten egg whites and sugar, baked until crisp; a shell or other item of confectionery made of this mixture, typically decorated or filled with whipped cream. In some recipes, esp. when meringue is used as a topping, cooking of the mixture is stopped before it is completely crisp: cf. SNOW n.1 5a. 1706 Phillips's New World of Words (ed. 6), Meringues (Fr. in Cookery), a sort of Confection made of the Whites of Eggs whipt; fine Sugar, and grated Lemmon-peel, of the bigness of a Wal-nut; being proper for the garnishing of several Dishes.

"Whites of eggs produced the Elizabethan dishful of snow, a spectacular centrepiece for the banquet course following a festal meal...The beating of egg whites was not altogether easy before the fork came into common use late in the seventeenth century...A 1655 recipe for cream with snow suggested a cleft stick, or a bundle of reeds tied together and roll between your hands standing upright in your cream....at the turn of the [17th] century a still lighter creation was introduced from France, in which the proportion of frothed egg white to sugar was greatly increased. The new arrival was quickly added to the sweetmeats of Britain, among which it is still to be found. Its French name remains unaltered. It was the meringue."
---Food and Drink in Great Britain from the Stone Age to the Nineteenth Century, C. Anne Wilson [Academy Chicago:Chicago] 1991 (p. 148)

The 1938 edition of Larousse Gastronomique tell us that meringue was invented in 1720 by a Swiss pastry chef named Gasparani. Queen Marie Antoinette is said to have enjoyed these. Recent editions of this book do not reference the 1720 date and they attribute the invention of meringue to Gasparini, a Swiss pastrycook who practiced his art in a small the small German town of Meiringen. Recent editions also add that until the early 19th century, meringues cooked in the oven were shaped with a spoon; it was Careme who first had the idea of using a piping bag. Meringue recipes here.

RECIPES FOR MERINGUE through time:

[1604]
"To Make White Bisket Bread
Take a pound & a half of sugar, & an handfull of fine white flower, the whites of twelve eggs, beaten verie finelie, and a little annisseed brused, temper all this together, till it bee no thicker than pap, make coffins with paper, and put it into the oven, after the manchet is drawn."
---Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book, original recipes published in London, 1604; edited and modern notes added by Hilary Spurling [Elisabeth Sifton Books:London[] 1986 (p. 118)
[NOTE: The editor of this book states this recipe produced meringues. Our survey of historic meringue recipes indicates flour was never a traditional ingredient. Book includes modernized recipe/instructions.]

[1828]
"Dry Meringues.
It is to be observed, that meringues, to be well made, require the eggs to be fresh, and that you are not to break them till the very moment you are going to use them. Have some pounded sugar that is quite dry, break the white of the eggs into a clean and very deep pan, break them without loss of time, tell they are very firm, then take as many spoonsful of sugar as you have whites, and beat them lightly with the eggs till the whole is well mixed. Observe, that you are to be very expedtious in making the meringues, to prevent the sugar from melting in the eggs. Have some boards thick enough to prevent the bottom of the meringues from getting baked in the oven. Cut slips of paper two inches broad, on which place the meringues with a spoon; give them the shape of an egg cut in half, and let them all be of an equal size: sift some sugar over them, and blow off the sugar that may have fallen on the paper; next lay your slips of paper on a board, and bake them in an oven moderately hot. As soon as they begin to colour remove them from the oven: take each slip of paper by the two ends, and turn it gently on a table; take off a little of the middle with a small spoon. Spread some clean paper on the board, turn the meringues upside down on that paper, and put them into the oven, that the crumb or soft part may be baked and acquire substance. When you have done this, keep them in a dry place till wanted. Then you send them up to table, fill them with creme a la Chantilli, or with something acid. Remember, however, that you are not to use articles that are very sweet, the meringues being sweet in themselves. Mind that the spoon is to be filled with sugar to the brim, for the sweeter the meringues are, the better and crisper they are; but if, on the contrary, you do not sugar enough, the meringues are tough. The pink is sometimes made by adding a little carmine diluted in some of the apareil, but the white ones are preferable; if a clean sheet of paper is put into a small stock-pot, and the meringues also put therein, and well covered, they will keep for one or two months as good and crisp as the first day: on which account, if you have a vacancy for one dish, which is wanted in haste, it will be found very advantageous to have them made beforehand."
---The French Cook, Louis Eustache Ude, photoreprint of 1828 edition published by Carey, Lean and Carey:Philadelphia [Arco Publishing Company:New York] 1978 (p. 408)

"Meringues au Marasquin au Sucre Chaud
For a pound of sugar take the whites of ten eggs, and clarify the sugar as directed in its proper place. Reduce it almost au casse, then let it cool, while you beat your eggs well; next put them with the sugar. Whe