"I say potatoe, you say patato"...

Well, sweet-tater pie is as good as it gets. It's the king of the 'squash' pie genre. I agree, they make revolting chips.

Well I love crumble more than pie. You can't beat rhubarb crumble with or without custard. If I had to choose a pie though it would be apple first and foremost with rhubarb a close second.
Alison

Here is a link that might be useful: Alisons nature reserve

Thanks for taking the trouble to pop over and liven us up.

This is England, so you can have steak, steak and onion, steak and kidney, meat and potato, balti, cheese and onion or lemon meringue but not squash, pie. AFAIK, squashes have only crossed the Atlantic in the last five years. Before that, we just had marrows. But the Brits have taken to squashes like a slug to lettuce, so who knows what culinary cross fertilisation will occur.

Personally, as a demivegetarian, I'm waiting for the first sighting of a mushy pea and mint sauce pie.

Cheese and potato pie is a homely but popular dish, with or without an underpinning of baked beans. I've not tried it made with sweet potato. Wouldn't seem right, much as I like sweet potato.

Anyone had the white-fleshed sweet potato as opposed to the orange-fleshed? They both look the same on the outside.

Pancakes? We Brits only really do sugar and lemon!

Does a pie HAVE to have pastry?

Quote "berries just aren't pie fruit." !!!!!

You obviously haven't tried gooseberry and lemongrass, or stawberry and apple, or one of the best Blackberry and apple, these are some of the best pies in the world, with crisp shortcrust pastry, sprinkled with sugar.

Here in Cornwall we tend to eat pasties rather than pies - well the meat variety anyway, You can't beat a good pastie:-)

Ahh, this is good, serious pie-talk. People will eat pie over here, but it's hard to get any good pie-conversation going.

Strawberry, I must admit, is great pie fruit. Strawberry-rhubarb is tough to beat. Blackberry-apple I havn't tried, nor even heard of, though I'd be willing to try it.

Garden nerd, you may be laboring under the proverbial mis-apprehension. Squash and/or sweet-potato pie is sweet, not savory. Northerners prefer squash while southerners tend to like thier sweet-potatoes. This may have something to do with the fact that squash thrives in the north of the country and sweet-taters in the south.

I'm a veggie also, and I do love a good vegetable pot-pie. This may deserve a thread of it's own. Cheese-and-onion sounds pretty good. I say, yes absolutely, pie must have pastry.

Aren't squashes and marrows the same thing?

Garden nerd, thank you, I'd completely forgotten lemon meringue pie (that's now on the menu for the weekend), my mum also used to make one with limes which was delicious.

I'd also forgitten the wonderful pecan pie, with pecans in the pastry, then drizzeled with bitter, dark chocolate and served at room temperature with a dollop of clotted cream -only about 8,000 calories a slice, but oh so good.

And yes, a pie does have to have pastry.

Is squash or sweet potato pie in the same pie family as pumpkin pie? That has crossed the Atlantic, though I would say the Brits are rather lukewarm about it. Something to cook to get rid of an Autumn glut of pumpkin, I'd say, though a good pot of soup would be a better idea every time!

I believe there are summer squashes and winter squashes, right? I think summer squash is the equivalent of courgette (zucchini) or the grown-up version, marrow. You can also get round green ones or UFO shaped yellow ones. They're all too watery for a pie, IMO.

Winter squashes include pumpkins, butternuts, Mesa Queens, and various other gourds with starchy orange/yellow flesh. They might puree down nicely for a pie.

British pies sometimes have potato topping instead of pastry though you could use both for a double-carb whammy.

On a seasonal note, do Americans eat mince pies?

My wife adores pecan pie (a bit too much, in fact) - I find it a tad sickening, though as a native southerner I'm supposed to like it. I can't remember what mince pie is made of; I think bostonians may like it.

Potato-crusted things fall into the shepherd's pie family, no?

Yes, there is summer and winter squash; when speaking of squash pie it's presumed to be winter. Pumpkin pie is indistinguishable from other squash pies, unless one is quite the expert indeed. This year I had a pretty good crop of one the so-called "sweet-potato" winter squashes. Sadly it tastes nothing like - Delicata or butternut are much better.

Mince pies contain (apart from pastry) suet, dried vine fruits & spices. There's probably some sugar and a splash of alcohol in there as well.

In the U.S., Pumpkin Pies are a Thanksgiving (a holiday which occurs in late November) dessert ritual. The origin of the holiday (Thanksgiving)has something to do with the first settlers (from the U.K.) managing to stay alive through a harsh Winter with the help of the native people (Indians), and eating the bounty of the harvest (or something like that--no American really knows, for sure). All I know is that in the last week in November, we eat a lot of Turkey and mashed potatoes and dressing (stuffing), smothered in gravy, and candied sweet potatoes (topped with marshmallows and brown sugar) and cranberries (from the New England cranberry bogs), and other assorted vegetables, and we have Pumpkin Pie for dessert. Many years ago, someone discovered that Sweet Potatoes taste nearly identical to Pumpkins, when put in a pie, and so do a number of very sweet Winter squash, such as Butternut. I discovered a number of years ago, that Brits do not like, grow, or eat Sweet Potatoes, because, in browsing the Thompson and Morgan seed catalog, there was not even a mention of Sweet Potato. I also read somewhere that the vegetable is way to sweet for Brits' palates. More's the pity. It's EXTREMELY healthy (sweet, though it may be), and there are many in the U.S. (my 101-year-old aunt, included) who make it a point to eat some Sweet Potato, each day. (The term "beta-carotene" originated with its discovery in the Sweet Potato. (Don't take my word for this--by all means, google "nutritional benefits of Sweet Potato"). The Sweet Potato (if memory serves me), originated in Africa; it is a warm-weather vegetable, and thrives on HEAT. Maybe that is why it is relatively unknown in the U.K.--it probably does not grow in your climate successfully. Here in the U.S., it is grown most successfully in areas that have HOT summers; it can tolerate much heat and drought. In Maryland, where I plant warm-weather vegetables in May (Tomatoes, Corn, Beans, Squash, etc., etc.), I plant Sweet Potatoes in June--it likes HOT weather. It grows very much like Irish Potatoes, once established, forming tubers under its parent plant, which are dug before frost, and easily stored at a temperature of 40-50 degrees (F), or 5-10 degrees (C), over Winter (as are Irish Potatoes and Onions, in our area) 'til Spring. My family always had bushel baskets of Irish Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, and Onions, in a cool, underground room, in our house, stored, easily, over Winter. The Sweet Potato pie is extremely simple to make, and recipes abound. Many find it easiest to buy a can of pre-seasoned Sweet Potato (with nutmeg, cinnamon, etc.) Pie Mix--already cooked--and just put it in a pie shell (dough). Or, for the purist, boiled or baked Sweet Potato ('til it forks tender), is used in the place of canned Sweet Potato, and spices added. Please, Brits, try some Sweet Potato pie--and google its health benefits! (We also eat it at Christmas, for some reason). :-)

Mojo, I'm with you on sweet-potato goodness. BTW, you might consider using more than one paragraph - it would make your posts much more readable.

Thanksgiving originates from the "harvest-home" festivals of southern england, so our british friends will be familiar with the concept if not the exact timing, I suspect.

pn: I don't want to use up too much space on the internet, so I conserve.

pn: P.S.: I doubt the "First Thanksgiving" in America had anything to do with the harvest-home festivals of southern England, no matter the one-sided reports one may get from the area of Plymouth, Massachusetts (or thereabouts). I have it from another point of view--from word-of-mouth testimony passed down through the Indian community that it was a party strictly given for THEM. It is no secret that without the assistance of the indigenous people of the area, the Pilgrims would ALL have died from naivete and ignorance of an area COMPLETELY unknown and foreign to them.
They taught the Pilgrims to hunt and fish, and to identify edible and poisonous plants, and, they showed them CORN--not just to eat, but to bait Turkeys and Deer with, and to place at the water's edge (where it shone like gold, and drew waterfowl like a magnet). The "First Thanksgiving" in America was a party the Pilgrims gave for the Indians, thanking them for their lives.

pn: P.P.S.: Feel free to ignore any of my posts you find aesthetically or stylistically unappealing.

Thanks for abbreviating, at least.

I don't doubt the colonists would have perished in the first years without help from the amerindians. However, I don't presume that necessarily means that the "thanksgiving" festival as we know it now has no precedent in anglo and european tradition. It's much more likely that those self-rightous and mentally-calcified holy-rollers were giving 'thanks' to god for delivering the chosen ones (themselves, of course) from the perils of a strange land. I think their true feelings toward the natives were well illustrated a short time later during king philip's war.

How could a festival so obviously thanking the 'gods' for the harvest - carried on by people of european culture - not be related to european tradition? Thanksgiving as we know it now was officialized in the 19th century to reflect an existing european tradition in the new world.

Most people in Britain don't know that pumpkins are edible - they're only sold for kids to cut up for halloween silliness. Which means they can be bought absolutely dirt-cheap any time from 1st November, as the shops try to get rid of the unsold ones.

Delicious, either plain baked, or made into curries or soup.

Resin

Resin: Interesting. In America, Pumpkin has been eaten almost exclusively in pies, over the years, 'til present. Few ate Pumpkin soup, but recently, it has been "introduced", in a most unusual manner. There are holiday (Americans call them "vacation") destinations in America, that term themselves "procreation vacation" destinations, of all things. They cater to couples who have experienced difficulty conceiving, and they usually provide a stress-free environment in the country, with relaxing massages, etc., and they provide specific healthy meals that ALL include warm Pumpkin soup. Pumpkin soup, now, is perceived as a food item that will help a woman conceive. (I, personally, don't know if this perception has merit.)
garden_nerd: To answer your previously unanswered question, Mince pie, traditionally (in many American families) was served right alongside Pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have begun to notice that over the years, its popularity is waning (for some unknown reason). In our family, my mother made both; it was a favorite of hers, but I noticed the Pumpkin pie always got eaten first. Following the American tradition of placing sweets upon sweeets, Pumpkin pie is generally topped (slathered) with whipped cream--particularly by children, but also by adults.
pn: Read closer: I purposely capitalized and placed in quotation marks the words "First Thanksgiving"--twice. From the Indians' point of view, this first "Thanksgiving" was a celebration given them for saving the lives of the Colonists, by providing food and proper clothing, and teaching them to find, grow, and capture their own food, in a strange and foreign land. Of course, everyone knows how they were later rewarded for their compassion and generosity--giving rise to the adage that, "No good deed goes unpunished". By the way, for one who seems to prefer style over substance, what is your perceived rule for the use of capital letters? Ordinarily, I would not ask the question--as I was taught by my parents early-on that it is not polite to criticize others--but since you have raised the issue of style, perhaps you won't mind disclosing your view on that point. I specifically note the words england, british isles, king phillip, begun with small-case letters. I might add that my concept of a gardening forum, U.K., U.S., or otherwise, is a place to exchange ideas and information on the subject at hand: grammatical correctness, be damned. If one's life is truly a search for truth and knowledge, one should be able to overlook the style in which it is presented, one would think. Also, I'm beginning to find you as obstrusive on this forum as I have found you on all others; particularly, with the first sentence of your post being, "This forum needs a little help, don't it?"--as if you are the saviour of the forum, come to rescue it from mediocrity. Your self-perceived magnanimity is obvious--is it possible you are descended from Royalty?

I don't know if I am or not, but the odds are against it. I mis-remember what 'obstrusive' means, nor even whether it is a word, could you illuminate? I don't know you from other forums, but it's without doubt that this one is, generally, slow as molasses.

So far as my possible magnimity - I'm pleased to be of service.

I return y'all to pie, with my apologies for the tedious exposure to anglo-american history.

pn: One with a brain the size of a turtle would recognize the word "obtrusive", with a misprinted letter thrown in--just as I recognize the word "magnanimity" in your word "magnimity", which has two letters omitted. (People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.) As I said, one searching for truth and knowledge overlooks such picayune typing miscues, and, hopefully, strives for substance over style. It was YOU who initiated the discussion of style; so, again, what is your perceived rule for the use of capital letters?

This started as a good natured discussion, if you want to throw insults at each other, please do it elswehere. This is the UK gardening board after all.

Oi, you two Naughty Americanos - hardly anyone posts for weeks on end, don't blow it all now by getting snippy over nothing. How come anyone noticed things are bit slow round here anyway, I thought we were all hibernating?

PN, have you nothing else to do than trawl the net for somnolent, nay, moribund forums? Having said that, it's hard to quarrel with "This forum needs a little help, don't it?" as a diagnosis.

Our mince pies are always round and rarely more than 10cm across. When you talk of "mince pie" it implies a rather different configuration.

Beta-carotene! Wow! I love beta-carotene. And lycopene. No wonder I've taken such a shine to sweet potatoes. AFAIK no-one tries to grow them in Britain (except me, and I've failed. And I'm a bit mis-guided as well.) because it just isn't warm enough for long enough.

I had a couple of those decorative traily things - "Blackie" and a golden one, which are decorative sweet potatoes. They did not do spectacularly well but have produced a salvageable root. I'll over-winter it and see what happens.

I don't wish to comment on the precise heritage of the Thanksgiving feast but it does interest me that cranberries are considered part of it. I presume that's a tradition that's been imported into Britain. Cranberry sauce is now a Christmas Day essential, which is surprising as I don't think cranberries are a native plant.

Although sweet potatoes are readily available now - mainly because of an influx of immigrants for whom they are a staple - I hope sweet potato with toasted marshmallow never features on the Christmas menu. What a vile concoction. Do people really eat it or is it mainly for display??

Love the story about the fertilising powers of pumpkin soup - keep 'em coming, Maryland Mojo.

deeds1 and garden_nerd: Well, I'm certainly in agreement with you both--two Americans squabbling on a U.K. gardening forum falls somewhere between comedy/irony/idiocy--I haven't quite got it figured out. And I take full responsibility, and am wishing (for myself) this Christmas season, patience and tolerance in the New Year. My apologies to all on the forum who had to endure the silliness, just by reading it. I actually looked in today to aplogize to all concerned--how ridiculous it is at this time of year, when Peace on Earth, again, is the ultimate hope for the world, to discover that two adults can indulge in such childlike behaviour over a pie discussion on a gardening fourm. I'm embarrassed at the thought; and, particulary so, since I'm a VISITOR (some may think, interloper), on your forum. My apologies, also, to pn. We all can't think alike; and diverse opinions and attitudes should not be cause for disagreement.
Back to pies, the subject of pn's post, and Sweet Potatoes, in partiuclar:
garden_nerd: Our mince pies are routinely the same size as all other (dessert) pies constructed here--roughly, 23-30 cm, in diameter. You've seen people throw (cream) pies at each other on TV? Well, that's the size of our (dessert) pies, always eaten at the conclusion of a meal (supposedly, as any other dessert, to leave a sweet taste in one's mouth, at the end of a meal). Also, we call mince pies here, "mince-meat" (I have no idea why); and, although I've eaten hundreds in my life, I would have to google them to actually remember what's in them. Something rather "pickly tasting", as though vinegar were involved. Regarding "candied yams" (the word "yam" being nearly synomomous with sweet potato, here--whether it deserves to be, or not): sliced sweet potatoes are baked in a casserole dish in the oven, for an hour, or so, and in the last 10 minutes, marshmallows are placed on top the dish (and sometimes, before their addition, brown sugar is added to the top of the sweet potatoes in the dish), making them sweeter, yet (for some reason). Children adore being the first to get served this dish, as they specifically want as much of the marshmallow topping as they can possibly eat, with the sweet potatoes. These candied yams are pretty much a "once-a-year" occurrence (twice, actually, counting Christmas)--and it's like a dessert in the middle of the meal, instead of having to wait 'til the end--so children are always "in".
Also, garden_nerd, I'll make a post soon about the proper way to grow sweet potatoes; I happen to grow them organically (and commercially), on a somewhat small scale, and I think I can disclose a method for you to grow them that will make it feasible for you (and that very few others are aware of).

WooHoo! We're back on pies:-))

However marylandmojo I do have to take you to task on one of your comments.
" The term "beta-carotene" originated with its discovery in the Sweet Potato."
I'm sorry this is incorrect. Beta-carotene was first isolated from carrots - hence the name, by Wackenroder (a German chemist) in 1831.

Anyway back to pies - here in the South West of the UK we don't go in much for meat pies. Here they're more likely to eat pasties. These delicious items are traditionally made with chopped beef, onion, potato and swede, all encased in pastry, They were the original 'packed lunch' for the tin and copper miners, made with a thick seam (known as 'the crimp') of pastry that was used to hold the pasty and discarded after the rest had been eaten so the arsenic and other metals from the mine wouldn't taint the food. The crimp is always on the side of the pastie, never ever on the top, and it should always be made with shortcrust pastry.

Sometimes the pasties were divided by a layer of pastry and had the meat and veg at one end and jam or treacle at the other.

In towns all over Cornwall there are bakers and butchers shops who sell pasties at lunchtime and are a part of the staple diet here for many people.

A good artizan made pastie is a feast, and bears no resemblance to the mass produced rubbish found in shops and supermarkets under the name of 'Cornish Pastie' .

Here is a link that might be useful:

Thanks for your very mature response, Mojo. It doesn't surprise me that anyone might be irked by me own self - I don't go out of my way, generally, to be likeable. I apologize also for my tactless advice before, and for various grievous mis-spellings. Co-incidentally, I am reading a book you might like: "stone by stone" - ostensibly about the stone walls of new england, but is really an in-depth look at geology and human culture in the region. Did anybody know that the stones of new england and old england were formed together?

So that's neat, a pastie-as-lunchbox, including dessert. Clever and very practical. The drawback would be eating it cold.

I made a pot-pie yesterday - it came out very tasty, though the crust is much too hard. The crust is wheat, barley, and rye flour, and has within it onion, carrot, potato, parsnip, radish and squash in a cheese sauce, with lavender and sage. It shall serve as lunch today.

"Anyone had the white-fleshed sweet potato as opposed to the orange-fleshed? They both look the same on the outside"

....

"Beta-carotene! Wow! I love beta-carotene"

Note that white sweet potatoes don't contain any beta-carotene. Beta-carotene is the orange-yellow plant pigment that gives the orange ones (and orange carrots) their colour.

Therefore, buy the orange-fleshed ones for better food quality.

Resin

deeds1: What a ridiculous assertion on my part, and I certainly know better. (I'd better stop swilling wine at night while posting.) My intention was to say that the term "beta-carotene" gained notoriety (and popularity) in this country (and for the average person, as opposed to scientific types) when it was found that the Sweet Potato was FULL of it. That was about 30 years ago, as I recall, and many people I know began eating a bit daily, many members of my family, included. Many include it in their diets to this day, (because of its health benefits) where. orginially, here, it was eaten MOSTLY at Thanksgiving and Christmas. My mother was a great reader about all things healthy; therefore, I received it at least once weekly, as a child. It's very easy for a child to like Sweet Potato, I might add, baked 'til fork-tender in it's skin (in aluminum foil, or not) in the oven, then removed and mashed, with butter and salt and pepper, added. (Fork-holes are poked in it, through the skin, or foil, if in foil; probably cooks a bit faster, and lets steam escape so it doesn't "explode". Tastes like some sort of treat, to a child. I also might add that the same applies to Cranberry (in this country)--also originally consumed mostly at Thanksgiving and Christmas until ITS health benefits were discovered; now, it's eaten far more often. There are popular alcoholic drinks made (in the U.S.) with Cranberry juice--I believe one made with Tequila (Tequila Sunrise, maybe?) and another made with Vodka; I'm not much of a mixed-drink consumer, so their names escape me.
Resin: White Sweet Potato may not have beta-carotene, but I'd bet it has SOMETHING healthy in it--it's my opinion that ALL vegetables (and fruits) do, whether it's been discovered, yet, or not. There is an heirloom white Sweet Potato whose origin (in this country) was here in southern Maryland--could very well have originated in the U.K--and its name escapes me, too. But I'll remember it soon, and post it. I've grown them and eaten them, though I have NEVER found a white Sweet Potato as moist as some of the orange ones, and if one exists, I'm certainly unaware of it. The ones I've eaten were notoriously dry (including the heirloom from Maryland, I mentioned).
garden_nerd: Turned the computer on a while ago, and saw AOL had the "Procreation Vacation" thing I mentioned all over the place. Anyone interested can google (or use any other search engine) those two words, and discover what it's all about. I happen to know a couple who took such a trip; they made them turn over their cell phones, immediately, and any other electronic gadgets--and they DID serve Pumpkin soup.

The sweet potato, Ipomoea batatas, is native to the tropical Americas so it is not likely that it was brought as a heirloom vegetable from the UK.

But cranberries are found all over the northern hemisphere, including the British Isles. Strangely, wild cranberries are not picked in Sweden where foraging is so common but the Finns and the Russians use them in preserves. The cranberries sold in Sweden are usually the cultivated Ocean Spray brand from the US, bigger and better than our native berry.

My Wisconsin relatives eat mashed rutabagas (Swedish turnips in UK) at Thanksgiving, not sweet potatoes. The worst item on their holiday table is a moulded salad made with green jello and grated carrots. Revolting.

Sweet-potatoes, as I mentioned in the beginning, are not much eaten outside the southern states - even in the US. In the northern heartland they are pretty much foreign. Probably most sweet-taters exported out of the south are for expatriot southerners such as myself. I don't suppose they can be grown in britain unless in a greenhouse, and probably not easily at that.

mariannese: Spot on! (Regarding the Sweet Potato's origin.) If you were to search "sweet potato, origin" you'll find very interesting articles and papers about "where" in the Americas; for instance, a lengthy (and interesting) discussion of "everything" Sweet Potato--including hundreds of recipes for its cooking and preparation) written by George Washington Carver in 1938, wherein he believes its origin to be American. Others--conclusively (it's written)--trace it to Columbia and Peru (I believe), in the area of the Andes Mountains. A MYSTERY exists also, as to how it found its way to Polynesia, where it has been grown since 300-700, a.d.

I believe senility has set in with me--how I made the assumption that a particular heirloom, white variety of Sweet Potato "...could have orginated in the U.K.", is beyond me. The climate is not conducive to its growth (or the growth of ANY Sweet Potato), and no one eats them there--that should have given me a clue that the particular white variety in question COULDN'T have originated there. I would term it a comment that has a "disconnect" with reality. :-)

The "Yam" versus "Sweet Potato" controversy has been going on for years in this country--and still exists. Just 6 or 8 years ago, I read a paper from an American produce supplier (at a time when I was involved in the distribution of produce) that said they were completely different-- the "Yam", (different in size an shape and texture), originating in Africa (I believe), and the Sweet Potato in the Americas. Forget all that. Now, in this country, the words are interchangeable, and cartons of Sweet Potatoes with "Yam", written all over them, are bought and sold daily. There are still consumers who approach produce managers in grocery stores in this country, however, demanding "Sweet Potatoes" and NOT "Yams"--and vice versa--and they're all given the same vegetable.

I happen to have managed an organic produce market (for a friend who owned it) in the year 2000. I was a grower who supplied this particular market, in an upscale suburb in the Baltimore-Washington "corridor" (as it's called; that 30-mile sprawling mass of suburbia between the two cities) and I spent a year trying to determine WHAT specific produce, and in WHAT quantity, consumers were buying. From a grower's standpoint, it was the smartest thing I could have done; I learned many things that I was TOTALLY unaware of. One of the more insignificant (but, nevertheless, noteworthy) things I learned, was this: A lady came in who told me she was from Cameroon (or some such similar place-- again, senility rears its ugly head), and asked if we sold Sweet Potatoes: I showed her a selection of about 6 different varieties (2 or 3 of them being white cultivars). She said, "Oh, no, I mean the leaves--we don't eat the tubers in my country". We had a brief discussion, wherein she told me they ate the young leaves, only, in her African locality; she said they boiled or steamed them,...

Drat--been called away, for awhile. I'll return. There's plenty of pie talk that hasn't been discussed, as pn said. (Got hung up on Sweet Potatoes for awhile--but probably becuase they make such a healthy and tasty pie.) Upon my return I'll describe a vegetable pie that I've only ever seen made and eaten in a 50 kilometer radius of Charlottesville, Virginia (may have originated at Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson), and nowhere else in the U.S. (or any other country I've visited). Who knows, its origin may have been the U.K.

Cranberry juice in a Tequilla sunrise - sacrilege!

Grenadine, Orange juice and Tequila. It won't work with cranberry juice as the specific gravity (rd = relative density) is different. It can be drunk, but you don't get the sunrise effect as the grenadine rises slowly up the glass.
Just had to make one of each just to check :-))

Always eager to know about a new veggie-pie.

Anybody here like to use pat-in crusts? So much easier than traditional crust (at least for me, I never got the hang of them), and the texture lends itself rather nicely to savory pie, I find.

Well done, you two, for returning to a normal state of civil discourse, give or take the odd side-swipe.

I think I'd like further elaboration & description of

Pot pies

Pat-in crusts

Just to be sure what we are all talking about. Recipes would be good, too. I haven't made a pie for about 5 years (Mince, one Christmas. Then they went mouldy in the freezer. But my then boyfriend very loyally ate them anyway.)But I'm almost feeling inspired to pie-make by this thread.

And while we're on the topic of the common language which divides us, 'Swedish turnips' are known as swedes in England. In Scotland they have their own nomenclature which I would not presume to try explain.

Swedes, of course, are also known as Swedes. But do they have swedes in Sweden? That would be a turnip for the books.

I personally think swede is a fine addition to a pie.

As a Swede myself, and a student of English in Sweden where we have to learn all major variants of English, I was trying to be helpful to native speakers of English on both sides of the Atlantic. I just forgot the British term "swede" for the yellow root vegetable Brassica napobrassica that goes by the name of "rutabaga" in the US. This word is actually a Swedish dialect word, in standard Swedish it is called "kålrot" (kale root). To get back on topic: it is never used in pies :-)

Sweden is not a great pie nation but we do the basic pies. I once served rhubarb crumble with custard to English visitors. The woman looked positive shocked, "But it is rhubarb crumble!" and looking at the custard "What do you call this?" I was suddenly unsure of my English but mumbled timidly, "I think you call it custard". I think she was outraged that a Swede could serve what she thought of as an exclusively English dish for pudding.

I've always been impressed by how generally and well the scandinavians seem to learn english. Perhaps the group will tolerate a very mild swedish-english joke? A swedish couple walk into a pub; the man says to the bar-keep: "a pint of beer for me, and do you have any juice for my wife?"

For me, "pot-pie" is a heavy pan or pot lined with some kind of crust and filled with some kind of vegetables, covered with crust and baked. "pat-in crust" is a dough made wet enough to just scoop up and press into the pan with fingers or fork. It tends to come out very crumbly.

Aha. I seem to remember making some suet-crust pastry back in 1969 which was essentially a loose dough which you could roll stuff up in or plonk on top of a mixture - usually steak and kidney. (Gross!)

So THAT'S what rutabaga is! Contemplating the contents list on a jar of Branston Pickle I assumed it was something like a sugar beet or a mangold wurzel. (I wonder what the Latin names for those are. I feel absolutely positive that somebody, somewhere not far away knows!)

Horrors! Does this mean that the quintessentially British Branston Pickle derives from the U.S.? We sure as hell don't eat rutabaga over here!

Ermm...could someone explain the joke to me? Please?

I learned recently the rutabaga (swedish turnip) and red russian kale (aka ragged jack)are the same species - brassica napus, I believe. A natural hybrid, so they say, between brassica olaceara (the cabbages) and the the other brassica family, mustards. If I remember rightly.

The joke is that the swedish accent would tend to make "juice" sound like "use". It's kinda funny.

I was at a very nice restaurant in Norway last year (happen to have a daughter who lives there--in Norway, not in the restaurant), and noticed Kohlrabi offered as a "vegetable of the day" on the menu. I dearly love Kohlrabi, and grow it, Spring and Fall in Maryland ( the hot weather of Summer makes it pithy, fibrous, tough, somewhat bitter, and otherwise distasteful). I ordered it; and upon receiving my meal found that Kohlrabi is not Kohlrabi in Norway--seems to me it was Rutabaga, or some other member of the Turnip family. What's that about?

(Pie story to come--must go enjoy a beautiful day in the neighborhood, here--will return after sundown). Unseasonably warm weather in the mid-Atlantic area, this Fall and Winter (Maryland and Virginia, in particular)--no real cold weather, yet. 16 degrees (C) today--average temperature is about 5 degrees (C), for this date. Global warming, for sure.

garden_nerd: You're only imagining "side-swipes". I was quite serious about spacing paragraphs on a suggestion from pn. I'm new to computerese--they had yet to invent the computer during my school days.

Cowpeas, or Southern Peas, are not peas, but are actually a bean crop that originated in India in prehistoric times, found their way to Africa, and were brought to the U.S. during colonial times.

It is doubtful that this specific bean can be grown anywhere in the U.K., unless it were grown in the WARMEST area, there, since it prefers hot Summer weather. Nevertheless, surely the canned version Cowpeas is available to anyone who has the inclination to give them a try; they are quite healthy. Most varieties of Cowpeas fix Nitrogen in the soil as they are grown, so they also improve the soil; some in the U.S. grow them specifically as a cover crop.

In many areas of the southern U.S., I find Cowpeas combined (and served and eaten) with stewed Tomatoes; the taste of each seems to compliment the other.

There is a small area in and around Charlottesville, Virginia, where Cowpeas are baked into a pie, and served, by the slice, at dinner or supper; nowhere else in the U.S., or any other country, have I ever seem them cooked and served in this manner. (Canned Cowpeas can be substituted for fresh, for anyone adventurous enough to try them--they are quite tasty and very healthy, and worthy of a taste-test). They are cooked and served as follows:

A kilo, or so, of fresh, shelled Cowpeas (of one's choice) are cooked in water to cover them, until tender, (approximately 30 minutes) in a sauce pan that will accomodate them. When done, ALL water is poured off, and the beans are coarsely mashed in their pan with a potato masher. (The idea is not to sieve them with a fine masher, but to mash them coarsely). Into a 24cm-30cm (10"-12") frying pan, 3 slices of raw bacon are fried until done and set aside, and the coarsely-mashed beans (cowpeas) are spooned into the hot bacon grease, (hopefully) to nearly fill the frying pan all around, to the depth of the pan (5cm, or 2" deep). The coarsely-mashed beans (Cowpeas) are either cooked (on medium heat) in the frying pan on a burner atop the stove, or placed in a medium oven to bake. (As stated earlier, 2 or 3 cans of (already cooked) Cowpeas may be coarsely mashed and substituted for the fresh, cooked cowpeas). The pan should be monitored until a brown crust has formed on the bottom of the mashed Cowpeas--with experience, this will take only about 8-10 minutes on medium heat, since the beans (Cowpeas) are already cooked, and ONLY being heated and browned on the bottom. When a nice brown crust has formed on the bottom of the mashed Cowpea "pie", the pan is removed from the heat, a (slightly) larger platter placed on top the pan, and the pan "turned over" onto the platter. If properly executed, one will now have a Cowpea "pie" with a nice, brown crust on top, on a platter. The "pie" is then sliced (like any other pie) and equal portions served to diners. The fact that all water was removed from the cooked beans (Cowpeas), and they were heated for 8-10 minutes longer, means that the Cowpea...

Sounds interesting, moje, though it doesn't really qualify as 'pie' in my book. Sort of an unusual twist on, or at least similar in make-up to mexican re-fried beans, I'd say. What do y'all call this concoction?

And Merry Christmas, by the way!

pn: Just a tiny bit similar to Mexican refried beans, as the Cowpeas are "coarsely" mashed as opposed to the "thorough" mashing of refried beans. The difference is in the TIME devoted to each. Cowpeas are only cooked 'til tender; refried beans are cooked for a much-longer period of time, 'til they become "mush"--skins, and all. One can note some whole beans in the Cowpea pie, and all skins are still intact.

I might agree that it is not an actual pie, per se; but, visually (by its shape), it's a pie. If one were to see it on the dining room table, one would surely wonder what sort of pie it was.

I saw a somewhat similar recipe from the year 1800, and I believe it was from some member of Thomas Jefferson's kitchen staff. The difference was that the "pies" were formed in small, individual serving dishes, and "turned" onto the diner's plate.

What do they call it? The Cowpea of choice in the Charlottesville area was the Black-eyed Pea, and we simply called it Black-eyed Peas--it is the ONLY way I ever ate Black-eyed Peas until I was grown, and found them cooked whole, with stewed tomatoes, in a restaurant in another area of Virginia. I had no idea anyone cooked them in any way but the way I had eaten them all my life--formed into a "pie". And, I was disappointed, because Black-eyed Peas, and most Cowpeas, have a unique taste, dissimilar from any other bean; and crushing the bean, and releasing this taste, is the ultimate method of eating it (in my mind).

I might add that my mother crumbled crackers into the stewed tomatoes, to give them some "body". Does that help you to consider it a "pie"--that addition of "dough"?

Probably not, since in reality, it is but Cowpeas, crushed to release their flavor, and formed into the shape of a pie, cooked in bacon fat, with a topping of stewed tomatoes (with crackers added to them). From personal experience, I must say that Cowpeas prepared in any other manner, is an insult and a travesty.

(I also had a great uncle that called it "Black-eyed Pie".)

pn: Merry Christmas, backatcha; and to all the other members of the forum.

A wet Christmas here in Maryland (as opposed to a white Christmas). Light rain moved into the area this morning.

A good day to stay indoors, reflect on the true message of Christmas, and talk on the telephone with people I (last) spoke to last Christmas.

Peace.

I reckon that means we'll be wet here by tomorrow; pretty nice for now.

An insult and a travesty, aye? Could be, but I do like black-eyed peas stewed and served up with cornbread (real yellow cornbread, cooked in a skillet). Anyhoo, interesting Virginny tradition.

C'mon Brits, are you going to let a couple of Americans with nothing better to do co-opt your forum at Christmas? That fat lady from "Two Fat Ladies and a Motorcycle" would be horrified. But not surprised - nothing is beyond us.

Maybe us Brits are too busy eating, drinking and enjoying time with our families to be on the internet on Christmas Day!

I think we should start a new thread, infact I'm off to so that right now.:-))

Can we have a recipe for corn pone, then we can dress up and have a Gone With The Wind theme evening? Oh, I forgot, a real lady is supposed to eat like a bird. That's me out, then. *Sigh*

We have no cowpeas in the UK (wouldn't sell without re-imaging) but we do have tinned Black-eyed peas.

If you have black-eyed peas, then you have a cowpea; if you have a chicken, you also have a fowl (whether or not you eat like one!).

I find Christmas day much more tolerable now, with the net.

Good corn-pone depends pretty much entirely on having fresh-ground meal, and baking in a cast-iron skillet with plenty of grease or oil (choose cold-pressed oil if you want to live longer than the average southerner).

i like pie!

Hey, garden-nerd,"turnip for the books"? I like that!