Custard Pumpkin Pie, Helen Cotter
It’s almost hard to believe that the Sun published “My Favorite Recipe” in the same decade as Virginia Roeder’s “Fun with Sea Food.”
As much as I respect Roeder and her recipes, Helen Henry’s 1960s “My Favorite Recipe” column in the Sunday Sun was a welcome departure from Maryland’s long-unchanging recipe oeuvre.
Educator and librarian Mary Carter Smith shared a recipe for a peanut-coated chicken from Sierra Leone.
Carol Zapata, whose husband was a surgeon from Peru, offered up a recipe for “Cebiche” made using rockfish from the Chesapeake.
There was plenty of room for crab cakes, stuffed ham, and Thanksgiving roast goose, but the overall variety of recipes was far more representative of the dishes made in Maryland homes – and the variety we take for granted today.
Whether it was long-cherished family traditions like Eleni Venetoulis’ olive bread (eliopita) from Cyprus, or the “Chinese Firepot” recreated in Dr. John Woytowitz’s Baltimore kitchen after a visit to Hong Kong, the recipes shared in “My Favorite Recipe” marked a change from the endlessly regurgitated and slightly-tweaked deviled crab and peach cake recipes that the newspaper had printed for decades.
Around 1969, the best of the column was collected into a book of 52 recipes.
In addition to choosing one of the least interesting recipes to make, I managed to forget about it for months. What we have here is a pumpkin pie recipe, in late January. The recipe was contributed by Helen Mary Cotter née Schmit, a dietician whose husband Dr. Edward F. Cotter was a medical instructor and WW II veteran. They passed away in 1996 and 1997, respectively.
The crust recipe, Helen explained in the book/column, came from her mother, Mrs. William Schmit. “She had a reputation for pastries in my home town, Waterman, S.D.,” Cotter explained. The custard filling came from her mother in law, Mrs. Edward L. Cotter.
Cheap used copies of the “My Favorite Recipe” book can be found online. There is also a copy at the Pratt Library which can be checked out. Be warned: there are a few recipes that might be a little too exotic… namely a crab soup with cabbage in it, and a salad made with raspberry jello, tabasco sauce, tomatoes and horseradish.
Filling:
- 4 eggs
- 1 Teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 Teaspoon nutmeg
- .25 Teaspoon ginger
- .125 scant Teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 Cup white or light brown sugar
- .5 Teaspoon salt
- 1.5 Cup (if fresh pumpkin is used, drain dry) pumpkin
- 1.75 Cup scalded milk
- 4 Tablespoon good whiskey “at the last”
Crust:
- .75 Teaspoon fine salt
- .666 Cup fresh country (use more if vegetable shortening) lard
- 4 or 5 (this varies with the flour used) Tablespoon ice water water
Sift the salt into the sifted flour. Work 2/3 cup lard into the flour until it has the consistency of coarse cornmeal. Add 2 tablespoons ice water and blend with a fork. Add another tablespoon of ice water and blend again. Finally, add 1 or 2 tablespoons more ice water, as needed, to make a tender, soft, moist ball of dough. Sprinkle lightly with flour and work very quickly into a tender yet firm ball.
Place 3/4 of the ball of dough on the center of a lightly floured board. (Remainder of dough may be used for tarts or decorations.) Roll out fairly thin. Lift pastry gently into pie pan. “If you have measured accurately and worked quickly, this is not difficult to do.” Trim dough 1/2 inch outside the edge of pie pan. Make a fluted edge, keeping tall enough to contain filling. Stir pumpkin filling thoroughly and pour into shell. Bake 10 minutes at 425 degrees, then 350 degrees for 1 hour. Serve with whipped cream if desired.
Recipe adapted from “My Favorite Recipe: A Collection of Favorite Recipes by Marylanders”, compiled by Helen Henry
