A Horse That Eats Pies

1895

He Likes Them Better Than Oats and Prefers the Mince Ones.

Leonard Jacobs, a pie peddler, has one of the most remarkable horses in Connecticut. Other towns have boasted of horses that chew tobacco, chew gum and drink beer, but Jacob's horse will eat pie. The horse is 23 years old. Jacob's pies come from New Haven, packed in cases, and in transportation some of them generally get broken and cannot be sold. One day Jacobs threw a broken pie on the ground near the horse's head. The animal smelled of it, touched it with his tongue, lapped it up and ate it with a relish. Then Jacobs began to feed pies to the horse. The horse soon got to like them and would even refuse oats when pie was to be had. The habit has grown on him until now, when Jacobs says "pie" to him, the horse will turn his head and wink expectantly.

He has a decided preference for mince pie, and the more raisins and currants and cider there are the better he is pleased. Apple pie is not a great favorite with him. Most bakers put grated nutmeg into the apple pie, and this doesn't seem to agree with the equine taste. Pumpkin pie he likes, and cranberry tarts are an especial delight. Peach, apricot, berry and prune pies are acceptable, but unless the prunes are stoned he will not touch prune pie after the first bite. The horse is fat, slick and youthful in his movements, and Jacobs expects to keep him on the pie cart until he is long past the age when most horses are turned out to grass for the rest of their days or are carted to the horse cemetery by the side of the murky waters of the Naugatuck river. — Baltimore American.

He Gets No Pie or Custard

1919

Such Is Hubby's Plea in Cross-bill for Divorce.

FINDLAY, Ohio — It was all right for the wife of Larson L. Brown to take hubby's pay envelope every Saturday and out of the contents pay a premium on the life insurance of her former husband, but when Mrs. Brown fed Larson side meat and boiled potatoes about 365 meals each year then he balked. This was learned when Brown's cross petition to his wife's petition for a divorce was filed. Brown intimated that a little pie and cup custard would have appeased things.

A Few Words About Rhubarb

It is safe to assert that no plant grows which is more universally sought for in its season than rhubarb, or pie-plant as some like to call it. Its properties are highly medicinal; the acid being of that kind which the system needs and craves just as soon as Spring opens. This craving takes possession of us at that season, with the regularity and persistence of the bluebird's note at that time, and it remains with us as long as there is a salable stalk in the market. It is almost the first garden product to which the gardener gives his undivided attention, as it is almost the first which lifts its hardy head to woo the sunshine.

A rhubarb plant is a very handy thing to have in a garden, as once it is well started, it will yield an abundant supply at an expenditure of very little care. The soil should be rich to begin with, and each year the root should be dug around, and kept well watered.

When purchasing rhubarb at the market always seek those stalks which have a red tinge at the roots; they are as much superior to the small, greenish ones as a rosy cheeked apple is to an unripe one.

In preparing rhubarb for use, the skin should not be removed, as many suppose, for in this is the best flavor of the plant. Cut the stalks into inch pieces with a sharp knife, and pour boiling water over them. This extracts much of the extreme acid, and consequently calls for less sugar.

Pumpkin Pies — The Vegetable Vagabond Makes a Great Pie

1876

We generally have them made of squash at our house, but always call them pumpkin, it sounds so much better. Squash is a dreadful name, and the man who invented it ought to have had a big Hubbard hurled at his head, as Ichabod Crane was served with a pumpkin, in the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow." But pumpkin is altogether a different word, whether it adorns a bill of fare, is woven into poetry, or is flattened into "pu-n-n-kin, as genial Robert Collyer does it. It is one of the old-fashioned vegetables, that has held its own among upstart rivals for a hundred years.

Precious little help has the pumpkin had from the propagating gardeners who are so intent on improving nature's productions in other fields The pumpkin is the, same honest, homespun self-made sort of vegetable vagabond it was when it straggled through the corn fields, and dotted the autumn landscape with spots of a golden color, in the pioneer days when luxuries were not necessities, and wants were few. They pretend to say that the quality has deteriorated, like some strains of blood in men whose heads this useful vegetable has most uncharitably been made to symbolize, and that the flesh is white and poor compared with what it was in former years. Yet this may be merely the croak of the old-time worshippers. But, whether made true to name or of sq——sh, a pumpkin pie, if rightly made, is a thing of beauty, and a joy, while it lasts.

We know there is an attempt made by certain super-civilized writers — of the sort who order for dinner "a little tea-ah and toast, wa-tah, and a chicken's wing" — to make abstinence from pie a test of refinement. Some of them haven't gastric juice enough to digest anything but a weak wash of some sort; but others are just putting on airs. We wouldn't trust some of the fellows who make a virtue of abhoring pie alone with a whole one behind the kitchen door — even at eleven o'clock at night. A well-made pie, of the right sort, is a good deal more wholesome than half of the modern masses concocted as a concession to dyspeptics, who charge upon healthful food the natural result of their own sin and ignorance in working without exercise, sleeping too little, and neglecting other normal conditions of right living.

But to return to our pies. We scorn to make a cook book of these columns, with our present supply of technical knowledge; but we do know that for a good pumpkin pie you want plenty of milk, just enough eggs, not too much pumpkin, a lump of butter, and a judicious sprinkling of spices — principally cinnamon and ginger. The concoction, when ready for the oven, should be about the consistency of good thick cream. Pies that cut out only a little less firm than a pine board — those that will "wabble" without breaking, like a piece of leather — and those that run around loose on your plate, are alike to be avoided. About an inch thick strikes us a good depth for the filling; two inches is better than the miserable thin plasters that one sometimes sees at boarding-houses, that look, for all the world, like pumpkin flapjacks. The expressive phrase "too thin" must have come from such lean parodies on pumpkin pies.

With the pastry light, tender, and not too rich, and a generous filling of smooth, spiced sweetness — a little "trembly" as to consistency, and delicately browned on top — a perfect pumpkin pie, eaten before the life has gone out of it (say three hours after baking), is one of the real additions made by American cookery to the good things of the world. We have our opinion of the man who could get up dissatisfied or cross from a dinner topped off with a quarter-section of such a pie. For the first pumpkin pie of the season, flanked by a liberal cut of creamy cheese and a glass of cider fresh from the press, we prefer to sit down, as the French gourmand said about his boiled turkey, "with just two of us — myself and the turkey!" Company is apt to distract the attention — and subtract from the pie.