Merry Christmas! Yes, I Will Be Trying the Eggnog Pie.
I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you for subscribing and reading this little newsletter. I know the topics of my articles seem random at times, but I appreciate all (almost) 1,200 of you who are joining me in geeking out about a lot of different things.
I alternate between role playing games and classic movies a lot so if you are here for only one of those, the others might not be as interesting to you. I’ve been a little sporadic on my more comprehensive Weekly Geekly Newsletters, but that’s because I am finishing out my dissertation and that’s taken a lot of mental energy. When that is finished, I’ll not only be a Ph.D. I’ll also have time to share a lot of the cool stuff that other Substackers (and bloggers at other locations) are writing about.
Speaking of “cool stuff” that other Substackers are writing about, the Retroist shared an image of what might be the most horrifying looking recipe ever published in a magazine (in this case the 1955 December issue of Good Housekeeping), Fruit Cocktail Eggnog Pie! It looks like someone decided to take all of the unappetising elements of fruit cake (Stollen auf Deutsch) and dial them to 11, but in pie form. Seeing this image prompted me to attempt to make the pie on my own at home, and I’ll be trying it out tonight.
As you can see by the image below, mine looks even more horrifying than the Good Housekeeping version. The main reason is that my wife and I started ading the fruit to the top before the “pie” had been sufficiently chilled and it couldn’t quite bear all the weight. The second is that even though I bought the Fruit Cocktail with “Extra Cherries,” there was a dearth of cherries. I’m sure there were more cherries than in normal Fruit Cocktail, but that just makes me weep for those who are forced to buy that.
I learned a couple of things in the process of making this “pie.” The fact that I am even doing this is probably making Nancy Rommelmann laugh at my inexperience at baking. Chief among the lessons was that making a pie that has a gelatin foundation is very time consuming because gelatin takes a long time to chill enough to “mound” properly. Don’t get me wrong, I know that Jello takes half a day to become Jello, but you don’t normally have to pause that mid-process to fold in whipped cream and fruit only to chill it again. This “easy” recipe is like a 6 hour investment of time. Time where you can do other things, sure, but time none the less. It is far more time consuming than the Risengrød I will be making tonight to thank the Tomte for all the help they’ve given Santa over the year…oh and for us to eat as a family.
The other thing I learned, or re-learned since I already learned the lesson when I made Tang Pie, is that whipped cream based pies need to be finalized in the freezer if you don’t want them to become goo on the plate. Needless to say, I will be filming myself trying the Eggnog pie later today. Wish me luck.