Meringue Pie
5 to 8 stalks rhubarb
2 egg-whites
Flour
1 tablespoon sugar for
1 cup sugar meringue
¼ cup water
Line a pie-pan with plain paste. Cut into pieces sufficient rhubarb to fill the pan, and sprinkle with flour until each piece is quite white. Place the rhubarb in the pie-pan, adding one cup of sugar and a very little water. Bake slowly, and when done spread over the top the stiffly beaten whites of the eggs into which has been folded one tablespoon of sugar. Return to oven and brown lightly.
A single-crust spring rhubarb pie with a very lean meringue. The ingredient column has been mangled in transcription, so read it as: 5 to 8 stalks rhubarb, flour for dredging, 1 cup sugar, ¼ cup water, 2 egg whites and 1 tablespoon sugar for the meringue.
- Trim the leavesRhubarb leaves contain high levels of oxalic acid and are not edible; only the stalks go in the pie. Any leaf attached to a stalk should be cut away and discarded before you start.
- How much flour"Sprinkle with flour until each piece is quite white" is a dredging instruction rather than a measured one; perhaps 3 to 4 tablespoons for a pie of this size. It is the only thickener, and rhubarb throws a great deal of juice, so err toward the larger amount if the stalks are thick.
- "Bake slowly"The book gives no temperature; a moderate oven of about 325F for 45 to 55 minutes, until the rhubarb is soft and the juices bubble thickly at the centre, suits the instruction. A hotter oven may set the crust before the fruit collapses.
- The pan and the pasteThe recipe specifies only "a pie-pan"; a 9-inch pan is a reasonable assumption. Lined with plain shortcrust and no top. Blind-baking is not called for, but the wet fruit makes a soggy base likely; a preliminary 10 minutes with weights at 400F is worth the trouble.
- A very lean meringueOne tablespoon of sugar to two whites is far less than modern practice, which runs to roughly 2 tablespoons per white. The period version tastes sharply of egg against the sweet fruit, and is likely to weep more readily, since sugar helps stabilise the foam.
- Sealing the meringueSpread it while the filling is still hot and carry it right out to the pastry rim on all sides. Meringue that does not touch the crust shrinks inward and lets syrup pool around it.
- "Brown lightly"No temperature is given; return to a moderate oven only until the peaks take colour. Cool away from draughts and cut with a wetted knife.
- YieldOne pie of about 9 inches, six to eight servings. Best eaten the day it is made -- rhubarb meringue does not survive a night in the refrigerator intact.
Rhubarb reached American kitchen gardens as a medicinal root long before it was eaten as fruit, and its rise as a pie filling in the nineteenth century earned it the common name "pie plant," which is how it is often listed in period indexes. It was valued precisely because it came up in April, weeks ahead of any other garden fruit. The meringue lid here may well have taken up the two whites left over from an egg-yolk custard or a rich pastry made the same day, and in any case its sweetness offsets fruit that is otherwise punishingly tart. Butterick, better known for dress patterns, is generally said to have issued this and similar volumes for the same readership that bought its magazines without much explanation, which is why the instructions here run to five sentences and no temperatures at all.