And finds plum-pudding realiz'd in thee."
But of all forms of pie, that with the apple for its basis is doubtless the most wholesome and by the majority is most relished. A woman who is infallible in her apple-pies and successful with her sauces deserves an annual trip abroad. But such, like first editions of "The Faerie Queene," are rare. No better instructions regarding the fashioning of apple-pies can be formulated than those of the late Henry Ward Beecher, who so thoroughly understood women, gems, sweetmeats, and gardening. His counsels are worthy of Elia, and the housewife should commit them to memory:
"There is, for example, one made without undercrust, in a deep plate, and the apples laid in full quarters; or the apples, being stewed, are beaten to a mush and seasoned and put between the double paste; or they are sliced thin and cooked entirely within the covers; or they are put without seasoning into their bed, and when baked the upper lid is raised and the butter, nutmeg, cinnamon, and sugar are added, the whole well mixed and the crust returned as if nothing had happened. But, oh! be careful of the paste! Let it be not like putty, nor rush to the other extreme and make it so flaky that one holds his breath while eating, for fear of blowing it away. Let it not be plain as bread, nor yet rich like cake. Aim at that glorious medium in which it is tender without being too fugaciously flaky; short without being too short; a mild, sapid, brittle thing, that lies upon the tongue, so as to let the apple strike through and touch the papillæ with a more affluent flavour. But this, like all high art, must be a thing of inspiration or instinct. A true cook will understand us, and we care not if others do not! Do not suppose that we limit the apple-pie to the kinds and methods enumerated. Its capacity in variation is endless, and every diversity discovers some new charm or flavour. It will accept almost every flavour of every spice. And yet nothing is so fatal to the rare and higher graces of apple-pie as inconsiderate, vulgar spicing. It is not meant to be a mere vehicle for the exhibition of these spices in their own natures; it is a glorious unity in which sugar gives up its nature as sugar, and butter ceases to be butter, and each flavoursome spice gladly vanishes from its own full nature, that all of them, by a common death, may rise into the new life of apple-pie. Not that apple is longer apple. It, too, is transformed; and the final pie, though born of apple, sugar, butter, nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon, is like none of these, but the compound ideal of them all, refined, purified, and by fire fixed in blissful perfection."
"Do you eat pie?" was once asked of Emerson. "What is pie for?" was the ready and philosophic reply. "Pie, often foolishly abused," said Artemus Ward, "is a good creature at the right time and in angles of thirty or forty degrees, although in semicircles and quadrants it may sometimes prove too much for delicate stomachs."
But think of the pies of two centuries ago! To appreciate the improvement which has taken place in the dessert and the preparation of sweet entremets, one has only to refer to Mrs. Glasse or contemporaneous and previous treatises on cookery. One marvels equally at the strange recipes, the assimilative prowess of the dames of yore, and the progress of the centuries. Canon Barham, who never fails to introduce his bills of fare, though these may not always be strictly reliable from the point of view of the times and the manner of the service, presents this in "The Lay of St. Romwold" as the termination of an olden feast:
"Then came 'sweets'—served in silver were tartlets and pies in glass,
Jellies composed of punch, calves' feet, and isinglass,
Creams and whipt-syllabubs, some hot, some cool,
Blancmange, and quince-custards, and goosberry-fool."
This was long before the dessert proper—from the French desservir, to clear the table—became an established course of the dinner; and when the sweetened dishes of eld might scarcely figure under the pretty Italian title of Giardinetto, or "little garden," sometimes applied to the dessert, and suggestive of all that is fragrant and ambrosial.