Wednesday, October 17, 2018

The Pie a la Mud

Mmmmm...

I've used many, many recipes in my life.

Starting with simple: crackers and cheese.
And, believe me, you have to get that one just right . . .
To more complicated: hot dogs.
And I'm sure I don't have to explain the vital importance of the meat to bun ratio. And I won’t even go into the selection and/or serving size of condiments.
But my very first recipe was not nutritious.
Or even edible.
In fact, though it smelled rather good, I wouldn't have fed it to the dog.
Well, actually I did try.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
I was staying with my friend/cousin, Jean.
It was summer.
We had been playing in Aunt Grace's kitchen. Under Aunt Grace's feet.
Till Aunt Grace finally had enough and kicked us outside to play.
Dutifully, we had played.
Then we started looking for something a little more . . . constructive.
“Let’s make mud pies!” Jean suggested.
Mmm. I like pie. “Okay.”
She found an old pot and we started adding ingredients.
I should mention here that, as we didn't have all of the ingredients for pie, and really weren't completely sure what those ingredients were, we . . . erm . . . substituted.
Back to my story . . .
Dirt. (For flour)
Water. (For water) And I should tell you that you have to get this ingredient just right. Too much and your mud pies are sloppy. Not enough and you can’t do a thing with them.  Just FYI.
Rocks. (Those were the raisins)
Two eggs that we stole from the hen house. (For eggs)
Grass. (For coconut)
We didn't mix any awful things into it, though I did find some dog doo that I was tempted to add.
For flavour.
Jean stopped me. “Diane! If you put that in, no one could eat it!”
Important point.
Finally, we mixed our wondrous concoction and formed it carefully into little blobs on the wall of her mother’s flower garden. Right in the sunlight where our pies could cook and get nice and toasty.
Mmmm. They even smelled good.
I never got to taste our pies.
We were called in to dinner and my Mom picked me up just after that.
But I remember them. And how they would have tasted . . .
Our good friend, Shirley was over visiting.
She told us her ‘mud pie’ story.
How she and her sister found an old pail.
Added their ingredients.
Stirred well.
When it comes to the ‘cooking’ part, Shirley’s story takes a different turn from mine.
Her family had a chicken coop.
With a little wood stove inside to keep their feathered friends warm in the cooler months of the year.
Hmmm.
Why bother to set their mud concoction into the sun, where the actual ‘baking’ would be iffy, at best.
They would set their creation on the little wood stove.
And boil it.
Genius.
No sooner said than . . .
I probably don’t have to tell you that the flaws in their technique were almost immediately apparent.
In Shirley’s words . . . “It really stank!”
So, a note to all mud-pie enthusiasts out there.
Bake.
Don’t boil.
You heard it here first.

13 comments:

  1. From the looks of that picture its sure looks mmmmmm....like it could have tasted good. :-)

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  2. "Bake. Don't boil." - hahahaha! And such a cute picture. I don't remember making mud pies but I made a mud (clay-like) dish once. My mother kept it for years. Because mothers are like that :)

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    1. The picture is my daughter. She who is the mother of soon-to-be six! How I remember that little girl out helping her daddy in the yard. 'Helping'. :)
      I'd like to have seen your little clay dish. Aren't mothers grand?!

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  3. I had quite a collection of little plates made of coils of clay and left to 'bake' in the sun. I painted them. I wonder what ever happened to them?

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    1. What fun! I'd love to see them if you ever discover . . .

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  4. I must have got the recipe wrong when I made mud pies, they crumbled when I tried to lift them off the bricks after they sun-baked.

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  5. I'm sure I made a few mud pies but not with real eggs. I could see my dogs liking it.

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    Replies
    1. When I think about it, I don't know what was wrong with her dog. My dogs eat dirt WITHOUT the eggs!

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  6. Wow, did you bring back memories! Mud pies were so fun to make. :)

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