Pepper, Pies and Milk

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 53, 28 June 1940, Page 44

Pepper, Pies and Milk

Dear Aunt Daisy, We are growing huckleberries and would like to know how the Americans make huckleberry pie. At the same time, we are wondering what is the best way to eat the giant peppers, shaped rather like a tomato. And may I have another "ask" without being greédy? Could anyone please tell me how the Danes make sour milk and sour cream, which they serve with fruit; or any other way of making sour milk. Is there a way of using rennet? I have learnt so much from your session that I wish I could adda link to the " Daisy Chain" but all my handy hints seem to come from that source in the first place. I have heard you tell about garlic poultices on the soles of the feet for whooping cough, and I would like to mention that I was also reading of it recently in a book sent to mé from England, It also stated that garlic poultices were excellent for ring-worm-on the afflicted spot this time, and not the soles of the feet. I have had no opportunity of trying these, but they sound so simple and are well recommended. Once I asked you about pasting linoleum on to a kitchen table. I could not buy the preparation you suggested but it went on very successfully with ordinary paste. Then a couple of coats of clear varnish transferred a shabby old table into a smart tidy one, which seemed to improve the whole kitchen.- " Boomerang" (Auckland). Beginning at the beginning of your interesting letter, " Boomerang," the American huckleberry or blueberry pie is made in a pastry-lined pie-pan or pieplate, and has also a top crust. The berries must be washed and drained and dredged carefully with flour. Be sure that each berry is lightly coated. This makes just enough thickening to counteract the overtlow of juice. Stir sufficient sugar well into the fruit, and turn it into the pie-plate already lined with uncooked flaky pastry. Cover with an upper crust, and decorate the edges with a fork or spoon. Bake in a hot oven (450° or Regulo 8) for the first ten miriutes, and then a little less heat-about 420° another half hour. Huckleberry pies supposed to be served cold, with sugar sifted over the top; and cream of course, What pie-eaters the Americans are! Pies with underneath crusts and top crusts, or with only " criss-cross strips" on top; pies with meringue-tops and delectable lernon cream filling, or pumpkin-cream, or pineapple, or pumpkin, these last being made in a previously cooked pieshell, These are all more or: less what we should call " tarts"; and our kind of (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) peach or apple they call a "deep apple pie." How did you get the blueberries to grow?