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Lemon Pie with Raisins
One egg, one cup of raisins, one large lemon, one cup of boiling water, one cup of light brown sugar, half cup of molasses, two tablespoons of melted butter, one even tablespoon of flour. Chop raisins fine; grate the yellow part of lemon; stir the flour to a paste in cold water and add to the cup of boiling water. Beat the eggs and stir all together. This will make the filling for two pies with top and bottom crust. - Mrs S. Z. Foster.
A pantry pie: no fresh fruit beyond one lemon, and everything else off the shelf. The original gives filling only, with no oven instruction and no baking time, so the gaps have to be filled in.
- The egg countThe ingredient list says one egg, the method says "beat the eggs." One egg across two double-crust pies is very little binding; two is the safer reading, and the filling will set more reliably for it.
- Use the whole lemonOnly the grated zest is called for, but "one large lemon" among a cup of raisins, a cup of brown sugar and half a cup of molasses needs its juice too or the filling is merely sweet. Add the juice with the zest.
- The flour paste is the hingeSlake the tablespoon of flour in a little cold water until smooth before it meets the boiling water, then cook the mixture a minute or two until it thickens and loses its raw taste. Flour dropped straight into boiling water lumps and stays chalky.
- OvenNo temperature or time is given. As a modern working guess for a double-crust pie, start hot, around 425F for the first 15 minutes to set the bottom pastry, then drop to 350F for a further 30 to 35 minutes until the top is browned and the filling bubbles at the vents.
- MolassesUse a light or full-flavour cane molasses rather than blackstrap, which is bitter and will dominate the lemon and the brown sugar. Light brown sugar, as the recipe specifies, is the right partner for it.
- Chop the raisins fineThis is not fussiness. Whole raisins sit in pockets and distribute badly; chopped, they spread through the filling and the slice cuts more evenly.
- YieldRoughly three to three and a half cups of filling, which is thin for two 9-inch pies as the recipe directs. Divided between two 8-inch pans it makes a shallow, dense slice; put it all in one 9-inch pie for a fuller modern one. Cut vents in the top crust either way.
Raisin pie was a familiar late-winter pie in nineteenth-century America, made when apples had gone soft and little was fresh: raisins, sugar or molasses, a thickener, and a lemon for brightness. In Pennsylvania German households a plainer version, Rosina pie, became known as funeral pie, the explanation given being that raisins kept indefinitely and the pie could be assembled on short notice for a large gathering; the association is traditional rather than documented to any single origin. The molasses here also marks the recipe as thrifty, brown sugar and molasses being cheaper than refined white through most of the period. The recipe arrives credited to a reader by name, as community and magazine collections of the period habitually did.