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Mexican Date Pie
1 cup white sugar Yolks of 2 eggs 1 cup sweet cream or milk Chopped dates Line pie plate with paste and put in a layer of chopped dates in bottom. Then add above mixture and bake. Beat whites of eggs stiff, sweeten with sugar and spread over top. Put in oven to brown.
A plain custard pie with a layer of dates beneath and a meringue on top. The original assumes you know how a custard bakes, and gives neither temperature, time, nor the amount of dates.
- The hinge: bake it low and slowA cream-and-yolk custard curdles if it gets too hot, and the filling here is thin enough to be unforgiving. Start at 425F for 10-12 minutes to set the pastry, then drop to 325F until the centre wobbles as a whole rather than rippling, roughly 30-40 minutes.
- How many datesThe recipe simply says "chopped dates," which is genuinely ambiguous. For a 9-inch plate, about 1 cup of pitted chopped dates gives a solid layer without swamping the custard.
- "Sweet cream or milk"Sweet here means fresh and unsoured, as opposed to the soured cream that period kitchens also kept on hand. Any modern cream or whole milk works; cream gives a firmer set.
- "Paste"This is short pastry, not a paste in the modern sense. One cup of sugar with only two yolks and a cup of liquid makes a very loose filling, which is why the hot start above matters for the base.
- The meringueTwo whites want about 4 tablespoons of sugar, beaten in gradually after the whites hold soft peaks. Spread it while the custard is still warm and seal it to the crust edge all round, or it will shrink and weep.
- Browning"Put in oven to brown" means a short spell at around 350F, 10-15 minutes, until the peaks are tan. A hotter oven colours the surface before the meringue is cooked through underneath.
- Yield and servingOne 9-inch pie, six to eight slices. Cool completely before cutting; a warm custard pie slumps, and the date layer makes the base slippery.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company to promote its Five Roses flour, and much of its content came from Canadian housewives who sent in recipes they actually used. That accounts for the telegraphic style here, with no oven temperature and no quantity for the dates: the contributor was writing for people who already made custard pies. Dates themselves were an ordinary grocery item in Canada by this period, shipped dried from a number of sources — Gulf fruit by way of Basra is generally reckoned the bulk of it, with North Africa secondary — and sold in various forms, pressed blocks among them, which is why they turn up in so many early twentieth-century pies, puddings and squares. The name is harder to account for. "Mexican" is often said to have been attached loosely to a number of North American recipes in these decades, though that is inference rather than documented naming practice; what can safely be said is that no connection to Mexican cooking should be assumed.