High pie is the number one celebrity among the hundreds of pies that belong to New York's piedom aristocracy. It is pie easy to cat as a forkful of sea foam, and made with cunning wizardry. How it's made nobody knows, so shut-mouthed are its makers. You can guess all you please; but no one to date, after a quarter of a century, has duplicated high pie, at least commercially.
High pie is of many flavors—Inn of the dozen or so always available, the Nesselrode is the top seller. Perhaps you have sampled it that is, if you frequent such restaurants as King of the Sea, or Toots Shor's, or Ronnie's, or Gallagher's.
But how's the stuff made? The makers tell you nothing; so here we go guessing. Cut into that Nesselrode— umm, that's terrific, just evaporates in the mouth! Its made like Bavarian cream pudding, whipped to ethereal lightness. It is rum-flavored, and the-top is covered with thin but large curls of shaved chocolate. The crust is typical of this kind of pie, that is, it must be of a sort fairly resistant to moisture. And since the pies must be kept refrigerated, naturally the crust suffers by chilling. But it's merely a thin little under-shell, a plate-to-mouth transport for a heavenly cloud. The lemon chiffon is of the same high, puffed texture, topped with something that may be egg white or a thin smear of whipped cream, then a sprinkling of coconut crisped to a dark brown. A delicious blending it is, the smooth soft cream, the sharp lemon—a dessert one cannot see without delight, one cannot taste without some exclamation of pleasure.
The graham cracker pie family all wear a crumb crust, a little spice in the crumbs, a sprinkling of sugar, and a trifle of fat to hold them together. When cut, those crumb-coated creams appear like some kind of foamy pudding fashioned in wedge shape. With what delicate persistence that filling holds together while a piece is cut and lifted from pie pan to plate! The chocolate graham cracker pie is more like a soufflé than a Bavarian, being both spongy and creamy. In the graham cracker lineup, in addition to the chocolate, are listed vanilla, strawberry, and mocha.
High pies have been nude for twenty-five years in the same kitchen on the first floor of an old brownstone home at 24 West 90th Street, New York City. The building belongs to the Spiers and so does the pie. Horrense Spier started the high pie trade, as women usually start a baking business, by baking for friends who beg to buy a specialty of her kitchen. The news of her lemon meringue traveled the town like a round-robin. The business built itself. That gave Mamma ideas. She turned the first floor of the Spier home into a restaurant and made lemon pie the important dessert; she made lemon pies for the carryout trade.
That lemon meringue of Mother Spier's stretches tip-toe in its pan at least one and a half inches above the low rim. It has a crispy, brownish top, made, we think, by sprinkling brown sugar over it before it is baked. Fluffy and tender is the interior, but not so delicate as that of the lemon chiffon, for it comes from an earlier-day pie vintage, remember.
Mother is gone. Daughter Ruth and daughter-in-law Mildred carry on in the brownstone kitchen. Ruth learned the pie baking from Mother; Mildred learned it from Ruth.
High pies measure about three inches high in the middle, less at the sides, with a domed effect. They are made in three widths: eight, ten, twelve inches; the prices: ＄1.50, ＄2.00, ＄2.50. The largest size serves fourteen portions; the smallest cuts portions for six.
Pies are made only to order; give at least twenty-four hours' notice to the bakers. Be your own delivery boy— that's the way it is since the war. These pics must be kept refrigerated, and should be served tingling with cold.
Tree-ripened limes are the talk of gourmets. A lime, it seems, coming to full ripeness on the parent branch, shows its gratitude by yielding more juice for the limeade. Fruit growers figure that a lime tree-ripened will give nectar to equal half its total weight. The good news now is that tree-ripened fruit is available from a California grove, shipped direct to your door. The five-pound carton, express prepaid, costs 51.25, or ten pounds for ＄2.25. In the smaller pack, the buyer receives thirty-six to thirty-eight of the average-sized Persian limes at around 40 cents a dozen. With the ten-pound carton, the cost averages perhaps a nickel less per dozen as the fruit counts out—an extremely low price made possible by the elimination of intermediate handling costs. Mexican limes may be ordered, if preferred to the Persians, these, being smaller, run twelve to twenty to the pound, as against the Persians' average of six to twelve. The limes are shipped within twenty-four hours of picking, and reach Fast Coast customers in less than a week, despite present shipping conditions. Limes are good keepers, and when Stored in the refrigerator, should last for three weeks.
Like all citrus fruit, limes give vitamin C as well as vitamin A and a host of valuable minerals. But on its flavor alone, the lime stands supreme, delicately refreshing. Use the lime any way you would its cousin, the lemon, bur the lime is a fruit more gentle in its sourness, thus requiring less sugar.
Lime is the number one drink mixer for ades and for rickeys. Iced tea takes to lime, tomato juice, too, and a host of other juices of both the fruit and the vegetable kingdoms. Save on butter by serving wedges of the lime with asparagus, green beans, and beets— a drizzle of the juice is a dressing complete. Drip lime juice over melon, over avocado, or over stewed fruit, and you have an Arabian Nights miracle to cat with a spoon. Use a slice of the green lime to top a clear soup, jellied or hot. Lime livens fish.
Some day make a lime filling to layer a cake, to fill up little tart shells. And lime chiffon pie, oh my! Its crust light as down, its Tilling smooth and soft. its top snow-peaked with meringue. Cut a slice, catch the lime perfume? So tart, so cool. Like Don Blanding in his ode to a “Wild Lime Pie,” you will “eat one piece and wish for another, and that one calls for its own twin brother; while the last piece looks so bereft that it's always gone by the time I've left.” For tree-ripened limes, your choice of the large Persian or smaller Mexican (as much juice in one as in the other, when you buy by the pound). order from Frederick Ray, Lyme Acres, 13158 BOCA de Canon Line, W. Los Angeles, Calif.
The kaellngers are solemn-seeming little cakes until the teeth sink through their bitter-sweet chocolate shell. Then comes a rich treasure of honey cake gently spiced, and with raspberry jam.
This chocolate-dipped honey square got its name from its afternoon employment as the proper companion of the coffee cup, at the afternoon sewing parties in old Denmark days. In Danish, kaellenger means “old woman,” and the expression, da gamle kaellenger (“oh, you old woman!”) is frequently used in fun or disgust. But the old women's cakes arc entirely fun, entirely satisfying; even two small squares fill one up to the chin.
In the kitchen of Old Denmark, 135 East 57th. the honey cake is baked in thin slabs big as paving stones, then cut into inch squares. The small pieces arc-dipped into red raspberry jam, then into chocolate. Each little cake is set in a frilled paper holder, twenty-eight boxed together. $1.95.
Counter Pointers. A superb munch for the after-dinner nut bowls are the chocolate-covered grilled almonds sold at Hammacher Schlemmer's, 145 East 57th Street. The almonds are toasted, dipped in a glazed sugar coating, rolled in cocoa, packed in pound boxes to sell at $1.98.
Chickens in gravy are being imported from Uruguay, touted as forty-day chicks, these packed in their natural gravy, the thirteen-ounce tins ＄1.35 at the Dover Delicatessen, 683 Lexington Avenue. Also from Uruguay is sliced turkey meat in sauce, the thirteen-ounce tins $1.59.
Tree-ripened olives packed but twenty-two to a can, the price 25 cents, are an item to remember when making up overseas boxes. Bon Voyage, 12 Vanderbilt Avenue, has 5000 tins.
There is Bombay duck for the curry-fans if you know where to look. Tel-Burn's of New York, 161 East 53d Street, has an ample stock, You have never tasted this duck? Then just never mind. It's a product one must learn to like, and there's too little around to waste on the unappreciative. The “duck” is a small, glutinous transparent fish. the bummoloe, the size of a smelt, caught along the coasts of southern Asia. When dried, it tastes like dried codfish, only more so, and is crumbled (uncooked) as a relish for curry, much admired by the Indians as well as by the English. “Bombay duck” is but a nickname that stuck.
Pinesbridge Farms, the home of the famous smoked turkey, again offers this delicacy in pâté form. Use it, of course, for canapés, but in other ways, too. Try it blended with a deviled egg filling, as a stuffing for celery, for flavoring a soup. Just one magic touch of the stuff in a macaroni dish is like turning pumpkins into coaches. Sliced smoked turkey is back also; so are those ready-cut pieces so long off the market. This trio of good things were sighted at Macy's, and also at the Dover Food Shop, 683 Lexington Avenue. But keep your eyes open, and you will see them elsewhere.
“Kanape Kups.” shaped as miniature saucers, are on duty again to carry cocktail tidbits. Devonsheer is the maker; thirty-five saucers the size of half dollars for 23 cents is a B. Altman offering.
A fresh orange marmalade is the new product of the Welch Grape Juice Company, which claims it is styled especially to please the American taste—that is, in contrast to the long-cooked, dark, and bitter-edged marmalade so admired by the English. The product has a full-bodied fruit taste, the thin bite of peel set prettily in the jelly. “Grapelade” is another Welch product not to be missed by the discerning of palate; it's a smooth-spreading stuff that looks like jelly, but tastes like grape jam. This is made from the juice and the rich fruity parts of Concord grapes, the same U. S. number 1, table quality, that goes into the famous grape juice. What vinous fragrance! A spread that speaks so loudly for itself needs no recommendation from us.