Stir Crazy

Several years ago, the teenage son of friends brought two beautiful chocolate pies to our Thanksgiving feast. I was surprised to learn that Andy had made them the old-fashioned way. First he rolled out and baked a homemade crust; next he combined egg yolks, milk, sugar, cocoa and flour and stirred the mixture constantly as it cooked on top of the stove. After pouring the warm pudding into the pie shell and setting it in the refrigerator to cool, Andy performed the last, triumphant step: whipping the sweetened cream and spreading it atop the pie.

Using a borrowed recipe, Andy worked with diligence but without grasping the concept of doubling quantities to produce twice as much of something--ergo, two pies instead of one. So upon finishing the first pie, a laborious process that took three hours, he wearily announced: “OK, that’s one of them”--and started all over again.

In hopes that the ordeal would not drive him from the kitchen forever, I praised Andy to the skies, saying he was certainly the only boy in his high school--perhaps the only person of either sex--who could whip up a batch of pudding that didn’t come from a Jell-O box. The homely art of making pudding is becoming lost to time--the time we save by using instant mixes that rely on artificial flavorings and gummy thickeners instead of honest ingredients such as eggs and milk.

My own children, who are not above slurping fake pudding packaged in plastic cups, can at least tell the difference between that cloying stuff and the real thing. Whether they will ever care enough to make their own, I cannot say. Nor can I predict whether it will be with the satisfaction I’ve felt since the day my mother handed me a wooden spoon to stir my first pot of pudding.

How I stirred that pot. And stirred some more. As I despaired that the milky slurry would never thicken, the growing heat suddenly transformed it into something of substance: a rich pudding that could, upon cooling, be cut with a table knife. It was nothing short of magic.

With slight modifications, the same basic pudding recipe has been used for generations to create many familiar American desserts, including chocolate pie and banana pudding. But the most delicious and unusual of these is caramel pie, a Southern specialty that shouldn’t be confused with the classic creme caramel served at Le Petit Bistro or even the flan offered at El Cholo. Instead of a baked custard cloaked in a thin caramel sauce, the filling in this pie is caramel all the way through. The combination of tastes--the slightly salty pie crust, the bite of burnt sugar, the soothing blandness of whipped cream--somehow cuts the sweetness. My husband, who is indifferent toward most desserts, practically licks his plate when I make it. So, in fact, does everyone else.

I’ve thought of dolling up caramel pie with a fancy crust--made with toasted nuts, say, or chocolate wafers. I could drape it with a web of spun sugar or fold praline into the whipped-cream topping. But to do so would miss the point of this plainly perfect pie, which is this: In food, as in life, honesty isn’t always easy. But it’s the best.

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Grammer’s Caramel Pie

Serves 8

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1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

13/4 cup whole milk

1/4 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 large egg yolks

2 tablespoons butter

1 baked 9-inch pastry shell

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Stir together dark and light brown sugars.

Into 1/4 cup whole milk, whisk flour, salt and half of brown sugars. Set aside.

Scald remaining milk. Add milk-and-sugar mixture and cook in double boiler until thickened (about 3 minutes). Stir constantly.

Whisk together egg yolks and remaining brown sugar. Add 1/2 cup of hot mixture. Beat well, then pour into mixture in double boiler, stirring constantly.

Cook a few minutes longer, then add butter.

Remove from double boiler and place pan in cool water. Pour into baked pastry shell. Chill.

Cover with whipped cream just before serving.

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Food stylist: Christine Anthony-Masterson