Raisin Pie
One cupful of chopped raisins, grated rind of one lemon, juice of one lemon in a cup, fill the cup full of sugar, one egg well beaten, butter size of an egg, three tablespoonfuls of water and a little flour. Two crusts.
A one-cup filling recipe of the kind that assumes you know how a double-crust pie is put together. The ambiguities are all in the measurements, and none of them are fatal.
- The cup of sugar"Juice of one lemon in a cup, fill the cup full of sugar" means put the juice in a measuring cup, then top up to the one-cup line with sugar. In practice that is about 3 tablespoons of juice and roughly 3/4 cup sugar.
- Butter size of an eggA standard nineteenth-century shorthand for about 2 ounces, or 4 tablespoons. Melt it or work it in soft; it will not distribute through the filling cold.
- "A little flour"This is the thickener, and the recipe leaves it to your judgment. One tablespoon is enough to bind a filling this size; more than two and it turns pasty.
- Chopping the raisinsOld raisins were often seeded by hand and chopped to break them down. Modern seedless raisins chop easily but stay tough in a short bake, so cover them with the three tablespoons of water and let them stand 15-20 minutes before mixing.
- Two crustsA bottom and a top for one 8- or 9-inch pie. Cut vents or slash the lid, since the filling is wet and will steam.
- OvenThe book gives none. Start at 425F for 15 minutes to set the bottom crust, then drop to 350F for another 25-30 minutes, until the filling no longer sloshes when the pan is nudged.
- Yield and servingOne pie, six to eight slices. The filling is intense and lemon-forward; it wants to cool completely, and it cuts far more cleanly at room temperature than warm.
Raisin pie belongs to the family of American pantry pies built on ingredients that keep: dried fruit, sugar, an egg, a lemon. It was a pie that could be made in late winter or on a farm miles from a market, when no fresh fruit existed to put in a crust, and it appears in many general household cookbooks of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The version with a beaten egg and butter sits between two traditions -- the spiced, boiled raisin filling that shades into mincemeat, and the transparent or chess pie thickened with egg. Raisin pie is also often associated with funeral tables among Mennonite and Pennsylvania German communities, where it acquired the nickname "funeral pie"; the usual explanation for the association -- that the ingredients were always in the house and needed no notice -- is traditional rather than documented.