Pieathalon 5–Sweeney’s Revenge

 

5th Annual Pieathalon

Fresh on the heels of Cowboy Day, it’s PIEATHALON time! 

No rest for the weary…lol.  But this is VERY exciting…because it’s the 5th annual Pieathalon (and my  3rd time participating)!

.

.

[divider]

[divider]

A  5-STAR PIEATHALON

From 1966

The Pieathalon is an international event hosted by Yinzerella of Dinner is Served 1972, involving food bloggers, who each submit a pre-1990 pie recipe…the recipes are then shuffled and reassigned.  You never know WHAT you’ll get (food bloggers can be a bit mischievous when it comes to their recipe submissions…I submitted a beer and lemon pie this year)!

Last year I got off pretty easy (not so much the year before)…and this year???  Well, there’s a fairly famous (infamous) pie called Seafoam Cantaloupe Pie (a quick Google search shows this pie making the rounds…from bloggers at Dinner is Served 1972, to Midcentury Menu, VintageCookbooks blogspot, Yuckylicious, Jolene Sugarbaker’s Trailer Park Test Kitchen, on and on…you get the drift…).

So NOW it seems to be my turn… 🙂  I think maybe it’s kind of an honor (or rite-of-passage, so to speak) that this pie has now come to me…at least that’s what I’ve been telling myself this week…as I work up the courage to tackle The Seafoam Cantaloupe Pie  (and to do it on VIDEO, none the less)!  The pie was submitted by the adorable Kaci, The Homicidal Homemaker (who runs a fabulous blog about horror-themed cooking and DIY…you absolutely MUST check it out)!

.

.

 

Get your melon ballers ready…

 

 

Sea Foam Pie by Jane Richlovsky, oil on found textile, 5″ x 5.5″

Seafoam Cantaloupe Pie comes from pgs 36-37 of Better Homes and Gardens’ 1966 cookbook, Pies and Cakes.  The BH&G editors advise to “Make it your standby for summer entertaining.”  It’s a ridiculous looking creation that embodies everything we poke fun at about the “lime jello, marshmallow, cottage cheese surprise”-type, 1950-60s era recipes…odd, unnatural colors, gelatin, bizarre combinations, and over-the-top décor.

 

So ridiculous in fact, that artist Jane Richlovsky has immortalized this pie in one of her many, thrift-store fabric and oil paint compositions…and somehow managing to make this iconic pie EVEN MORE unappetizing than it already was!  I can totally empathize with the melon ball on the far right of the painting…trying to “make a break for it.”  (The $900 painting is currently up for sale…just sayin’, all you fine art collectors.)

.

.

.

.

.

.

[divider]

[divider]

THE VIDEO

In honor of the 5th annual Pieathalon, I decided to make a video of this pie…based upon my all-time favorite musical about PIES…

A MUSICAL about PIES?  YUP!  It’s… SWEENEY TODD, THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET !

Now I DO LOVE Johnny Depp…and really like Tim Burton too…but my favorite version of Sweeney Todd  is not their 2008 movie…my FAVORITE is the 1979, Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical starring Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett and Len Cariou as Sweeney Todd.

(For those unfamiliar with the story, Sweeney Todd was a barber in London, set on revenge against the judge who falsely convicted him, exiled him to Australia, and stole his beautiful wife. Upon returning to London and changing his name to Sweeney Todd, he starts murdering his barber shop clients, robbing them, and then dumps the bodies using a trap door and a tilting barber chair. To dispose of the corpses, his accomplice, Mrs. Lovett bakes them into meat pies and sells them to unsuspecting customers.  The pies are a big hit with all of London!)

The original tale of Sweeney Todd dates back to 1846 in a Victorian era, 39-installment, British “penny dreadful” series called The String of Pearls.  There have been at least 5 film versions, dating back to a silent film in 1926.  I watched 3 versions from 1928 (silent), 36, and 70…in preparation of making my own rendition.  They were all great fun!

SO HERE’S MY   TRIBUTE TO SWEENEY TODD…

(AND YINZERELLA, KACI-THE HOMICIDAL HOMEMAKER, AND ALL MY FOODIE FRIENDS IN SWEENEY’S HOMETOWN OF LONDON…)

Recipes, preparation notes, and links to ALL THE OTHER FANTASTIC PIE-ATHLETES  follow the video. 

.

.

.

.

[divider]

[divider]

THE PIE

Burl Ives’ Florida Lime Pie fresh from the oven…cooling

Recipes4Rebels has branched out this past year…as I’ve been baking pies and cakes for a local (Zakynthos, Greece) coffee/sweet shop…ALL from recipes from the Recipes for Rebels: In the kitchen with James Dean cookbook!  How’s that for a funny twist of fate?

Best sellers include Burl Ives’ Florida Lime Pie (the overwhelming top seller), Pepsi Cola Cake with Broiled Peanut Butter Frosting, Richard Thomas’ Applesauce Cake with Whiskey Frosting, Elizabeth Taylor’s White Chocolate Banana Cream Pie, and even the 1845 Apple Pie which was my pie assignment from last year’s Pieathalon!  (Sorry, Mrs. Lovett…there’s NO meat pies on my  menu!)

Sumada Café in Zakynthos town

But there’s no such thing as a Pieathalon without a few challenges…my first hurdle was THE CANTALOUPE.  I thought for sure I’d find one at the open-air fruit market up the road (most Greeks don’t buy their produce, meats, cheeses, eggs, or breads at the supermarket…there are small, mom and pop, specialty stores for each of those things in every neighborhood).  Alex Fruit always  has lots of exotic, local and imported produce…but guess what?  NO CANTALOUPE!  So I bought a hard, giant, orange, acorn-shaped melon from him, just in case…

Next stop, the “fancy pants,” new produce market with their beautiful fruit and vegetable displays in a glass enclosed, air-conditioned shop…but NOPE!  I bought a round, pumpkin-shaped melon that I knew had a yellow interior…just in case…

Then another store…and another strike.  I’m getting concerned.

Green, “Honeydew”-type melons are plentiful (I’ve done a couple of postings on making homemade Midori from them)…flavor-wise, that would work nicely.  But Seafoam Cantaloupe Pie needs ORANGE-colored melon balls to live up to it’s full glory!  Apparently, I wasn’t alone in this predicament…Sweeney Todd, in the video, seems to suffer from a similar dilemma as I did.  (Hey, I’ll take comfort where I can find it.)

I had given up…planning on using one of my (now) 3 “just-in-case” melons, when I stopped at the big, chain, supermarket (with the tiniest, down-sized, produce department) to pick up a few unrelated things…and VIOLA!  A LONE CANTALOUPE, sitting by itself amongst some apples and oranges!  This must be a sign!  Let the melon-balling begin!

Hurdle number two, THE PIE PAN.  The pictured pie is in a glass pie plate…my only 9″ pie pans are metal and rather shallow.  I brought them back with me from my last trip to the States (Greeks don’t make pies the same as Americans…and I’ve never found good [or any] pie pans here).  My only glass pie plate is deep dish and much larger…So I’m going with the glass, deep dish, pie plate and doubling the filling.  (Because the photo shows this pie artfully displayed in a glass pie plate on a bed of leatherleaf fern…I work part time at a local florist, so the leatherleaf was an easy acquisition.)  PLUS, is there really such a thing as TOO MUCH Seafoam Cantaloupe Pie?  I’ve got neighbors I can torture…

MY PIE CRUST

Just a few quickie notes about pie crusts…

• So while embarking on this new pie baking venture, my standard pie crust recipe underwent a makeover.  I had always used shortening for my crusts (not lard or butter).  But here in Greece, I can’t get Crisco (what I used when living in the States).  The solid shortenings I could find, imparted flavors that I just didn’t care for.  I decided to go with a nice BUTTERY crust.
• Choosing the proper butter, as it turned out, was 3/4 of the battle.  You want a butter that is low in moisture (water content)…fortunately,  most European butters fit that criteria (too much moisture makes your dough tough).
  

  Keep it cold…

• I now  cut the COLD butter into the flour by hand, with an old fashioned pastry cutter (my grandmother’s actually).  For years, I used to do this with a food processor, but decided that I wanted to leave the chunks of butter a bit larger (pea-sized and even a lot larger)…and so I have much more control when doing this by hand.  It’s not all that  much extra labor, but is  less dish washing for later…
• The small amount of water added to the recipe needs to be ice cold (actually ADD a couple of ice cubes to the water while you’re cutting the butter into your flour)…and add just barely enough, tablespoon by tablespoon, that the dough ball almost  doesn’t hold together.
• Handle the dough as little as possible…those 98.6°F fingers of yours are no friend to that pie crust.
• Wrap and chill the dough in the refrigerator for a minimum of 30 minutes before rolling out.  Work quickly.  It’s August and hot as Hades here right now…  Keeping that dough cold, creates the flakey layers of fat and flour that you’re looking for.  The whole process is not nearly as complicated as I’m making it sound (as you surely saw in the video)…keep it all cold and you’re on the road to a successful pie crust.

SEAFOAM CANTALOUPE PIE

• The recipe is pretty straight forward.  There’s not really any further explanation needed.  The cooked filling is a bit ALARMING in texture and color…but it all gets straightened out when the whipped ingredients are folded in.  There are a lot of components and lots of chilling involved with this pie…allow yourself plenty of time.
  

  Seafoam Cantaloupe Pie

• Be sure and stir the gelatin/custard filling mixture constantly as you’re bringing it to a boil…to avoid ending up with scrambled eggs.  Be sure to give it a stir every now and then when it’s chilling in the refrigerator too (to avoid lumps).  Mine took almost 40 minutes to thicken in the refrigerator…and then suddenly in the last 5 minutes decided to gel firmly.  This resulted in lumps.  I SHOULD HAVE whipped or beat the filling base totally smooth again before proceeding, but I didn’t…and ended up with a pie filling that was a bit irregularly textured.  Live and learn.
• Here’s an important one… Finely crush your eggshells before discarding…WITCHES come in the middle of the night and steal them, using them as boats and creating havoc for the sailors at sea (okay, so MAYBE it’s just an old Greek superstition, but I still do it every time…just in case).
• I always add 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar to both whipped cream and beaten egg whites.  It toughens the egg whites and stabilizes the cream so that they stay fluffier for longer.
• Like the Key Lime pie that I make regularly, this pie benefits from around 4 hours in the refrigerator before cutting and serving (a chemical reaction between the egg yolks and the lime juice cause the filling to firm up nicely over time).  You’ll probably want to wait until just before serving to do your whipped cream garnish anyway.

THE VERDICT???

BH&G’s Seafoam Cantaloupe Pie

Better than you would expect (didn’t see that one coming, did ya?).  The fluffy lime filling was sweet, tart, and refreshing without being filling (as a summer-time dessert should be).  The lime zest added great flavor and aroma…and I liked the little specks throughout.  But the cantaloupe balls were still weird!

The tartness of the lime counterbalanced the musky flavor of the melon…only to a degree.  The toasted coconut garnish was like an empty promise…not really adding anything in the visual or taste departments.  Maybe some additional grated lime zest would have been more appropriate?

“It doesn’t sound so bad,” pondered Alex. “It’ll be like a fruit salad with a squeeze of lime.”

“I’m not so sure…” I added skeptically.

It was blazing hot out by mid-afternoon as I finished up garnishing and shooting video of the pie in our unairconditioned kitchen.  My choice to use the glass pie plate (and therefore doubling the amount of filling to fill the deep dish container) made the pie EVEN MORE ridiculous looking!

Alex and I bravely sat on the shaded porch and stared at the humongous slice of Seafoam Cantaloupe Pie…it’s melon balls staring back as if to ominously say, “I dare you!”  I took a fork full, just as a bead of sweat rolled off my forehead into my eye, blinding me…one melon ball went flying off my fork, making a last ditch, but ultimately unsuccessful, escape attempt.  On my second endeavor, I was finally rewarded with the expected mouthful of fluffy lime-iness and melon.

My Seafoam Cantaloupe Pie

Alex declared it “…perfect for this kind of weather (followed by silence).  I like it…I think…I’m not sure (more silence).  Who came up with this anyway?”

“Better Homes and Gardens,” I responded.

“More like Stranger  Homes and Gardens,” Alex quickly retorted. “If it weren’t this hot out,” he continued, “I don’t think I’d like it.  You’re NOT  taking any over to the neighbors are you ?”

“I don’t think so…” I acquiesced.

The contrasting textures didn’t quite work for me and the natural, musky, melon sweetness kind of fought with the sugar-enhanced, fluffy, lime-scented chiffon quality (still not sure which won that  tastebud battle).  The lime flavor was strong and lovely…but the cantaloupe was also strong and kept popping up like virtual  belches.  In reviews I read of other people who’ve actually  made this pie, the consensus is…that combination of the two is just strange (and not in a good way).  But it’s not totally  bad either…

Alex tried another slice the following (equally hot) day, reporting that the lime flavoring had somewhat permeated the melon balls and it was much better.  More like the fruit salad he was initially expecting.

Visually…this pie can leave your guests speechless (if they’re of a polite nature).  This could be a good thing if it was your intention to SHOCK…or a bad thing if it wasn’t.

Will I be making it my “standby for summer entertaining?”  NO!   I’ll definitely be serving my lime pies and cantaloupe separately in the future.

In the end, after a whole lot of blood, sweat, and tears…it provided a few good laughs for Alex and myself (and the neighbors, when we recounted the story of the Seafoam Cantaloupe Pie that they weren’t  subjected to) …and that  was certainly a GOOD thing!

.

.

.

[divider]

[divider]

THE PIE-ATHLETES…

Thanks Yinzerella (and Kaci-The Homicidal Homemaker), I had a great time at this year’s Pieathalon!  Here are links to all the other participants in the 5th Annual Pieathalon (24 of them!  Amazing!).

You’ll find LOTS of hilarity…a few fails…some amazing successes…and plenty of FUN within this list!  Check them all out… ( all postings go LIVE on Aug 20th, but everyone is in different time zones around the world…if a link doesn’t work, check back later…)

• Aloha Meringue Pie by Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook
• Apricot Meringue Pie by Eliot’s Eats
• Chocolate Mousse Pie by Kelli’s Kitchen
• Cool Mint Cookie Pie by The Book of Cookrye
• Dutch Peaches and Cream Pie by Vintage Recipe Cards
• French Raspberry Pie by Tortillas and Honey
• Frosty Vanilla Pie by Battenberg Belle
• Kate’s Pie by Dinner is Served 1972
• Lemon Beer Sponge Pie by Homicidal Homemaker
• Marguerite Patten’s Cheese Pie by Velveteen Lounge Kitsch-en
• Mock Pecan Pie by MyCustardPie.com
• Olde English Eggnog Pie by HeritageRecipeBox.com
• Peaches and Cream Tart by Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Puddin n’ Pie by The Sound of Vincent Price & Vincent Price Legacy UK
• Ritz Cracker Mock Apple Pie by Dr. Bobb’s Kitschen
• Seafoam Cantaloupe Pie by Recipes4Rebels
• Strawberry Ginger Pie by Granny Pantries
• Sweet Onion Pie by Silver Screen Suppers – The Wonderful World of Film Star Eating and Drinking
• Tansey by The Nostalgic Cook
• The Millionaire by Once Upon a Salad
• Tyler Pie by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Vincent Price Pineapple Meringue by Retro Food for Modern Times
• Weight Watchers “Almost a Pie” by BookClub CookBook
• Yul Brenner’s Walnut Pie by Vintage Cookbookery

.

.

[divider]

[divider]

What’re we cookin’ up next in the Recipe4Rebels kitchen?   Be the FIRST to know by signing up for free email notifications here:

[email-subscribers namefield=”YES” desc=”” group=”Public”]

[divider]

[divider]

Sharing is caring! Put a smile 🙂 on the face of someone you know, by sharing this posting with the social media buttons below…and don’t forget to leave a comment before you go…that really makes my day!