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Lemon Pie
(I.) Mix two tablespoonfuls of corn starch with one breakfast cupful of hot water, pour it into a stewpan, and stir over the fire until boiling. Then mix in the grated rinds and juice of two lemons and three-fourths of a pound of powdered sugar; when cool stir in the yolks of four well-beaten eggs, line some buttered plates with a good rich crust, pour the mixture in, and bake until the crust is done. Beat the whites of two eggs together with six tablespoonfuls of sugar, and when very light and frothy pour it over the pies, place them in the oven again, and bake till slightly browned. Serve either hot or cold. (2.) Make a good paste, and line a deep pie-dish with it. Stir together the following: The grated rinds and juice of two lemons, one breakfast cupful of finely-chopped raisins, one teacupful of cracker-dust, one breakfast cupful of boiling water, and one and one-half breakfast cupfuls of sugar. Stir all these ingredients in a saucepan over the fire until they boil, and then fill the dish with them; put an upper crust on the pie, wetting the edges to make it adhere, brush the surface with beaten eggs, make two or three little cuts in it, and bake in a moderate oven until well-browned.
Two distinct pies under one heading: a cornstarch-thickened lemon curd under meringue, and a closed double-crust lemon-and-raisin pie thickened with cracker crumbs. The measurements are period cup measures and need translating before you start.
- Breakfast cup and teacupA breakfast cupful is roughly 8 to 10 fl oz; treat it as a standard 8 oz cup and you will be close. A teacupful is smaller, about 6 fl oz. Three-quarters of a pound of sugar is about 1 2/3 cups.
- Powdered sugarIn this period the term generally meant granulated sugar ground fine, not the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar sold today. Use ordinary granulated; the recipe already has its own cornstarch.
- Buttered platesThese are pie plates, and the instruction to butter them under the pastry is period practice for a rich crust that might stick. The quantities in version 1 fill two shallow 8- or 9-inch plates, or one deep 9-inch with filling to spare.
- Cook the starch properlyThe cornstarch-and-water base must come to a full boil and thicken before anything else goes in; prolonged contact with the acid of two lemons can thin a starch paste. Undercooked starch is one of the reasons these fillings weep.
- Adding the yolks"when cool" means genuinely cooled, not warm; four yolks stirred into hot starch can scramble in streaks. The filling then sets in the oven with the shell. The original gives no temperature or time, but roughly 35 to 45 minutes in a moderately hot oven (about 375F), until the centre barely trembles, will answer.
- The meringueTwo whites to six tablespoons of sugar is a sweet meringue. Spread it so it touches the crust all round. The original says only to bake till slightly browned; about 10 to 12 minutes in a moderate oven (350F) rather than fierce heat will do it.
- Cracker-dustFinely crushed plain soda or water crackers, used as the thickener in version 2. One teacupful, roughly three-quarters of a cup of crumbs; unsalted cracker crumbs are the nearest modern equivalent, and dry breadcrumbs will stand in at a pinch.
- Moderate oven350F. The double-crust version needs 45 minutes to an hour there — long enough for the bottom pastry to set under a wet, sugary filling.
- YieldVersion 1 gives two shallow pies, six to eight servings; version 2 gives one deep pie of eight.
Oscar Tschirky's book gathers the standard American repertoire alongside Waldorf service, and lemon pie is one of the places where the domestic tradition shows through. The first version is the familiar starch-set lemon meringue, which became common in the later nineteenth century as commercial cornstarch grew cheap and widely available. The second is older in character: a closed pie of chopped raisins, whole lemon and cracker crumbs, comparable to other New England lemon pies and to the fruit-and-crumb pattern of mincemeat. Cracker crumbs were in common use as a thickener in pies and puddings of the period.