My unexpected memory of this pie holds a truth, but not only for our young family;
it holds a truth for other families who begin happily bonded, but end up separating.
These years of joy, delight, excitement, and “gratitude!” . . . deserve their place.
After nine years of marriage, my husband, Paul Sherburne,* and I buy our first home. It needs renovation. We are excited and are up to the task, for our children will live across from a family park with an elementary school on the backside. Our adopted daughter, seven, will go there in the fall. And I am pregnant with our second child.
In our first month, we watch the Fourth of July parade as it goes by our home. Our daughter, thrilled, waves to the astronaut who lives in our town. When our second daughter is born, I nurse her, and Paul carries her upside down on his arm when she has colic. Our older daughter brings a new friend in to see her sister.
The kitchen woodwork is avocado green. Out the kitchen window, above the sink, my postage stamp garden boasts tomatoes and marigolds. Our neighbor Mrs. Watson’s flowers are fenced in, but the slugs I kill help us both. A red, Scandinavian-style table takes up most of the kitchen. Behind it this morning, in her high chair, our now nine-month-old waves her spoon as I am putting out the ingredients for my first shoofly pie. I don’t stop to wipe a ring of food around her mouth because she’s happy.
We take both daughters to our Unitarian Church for a baptism of names. In third grade, our older daughter attends a magnet school where she takes Latin and participates in an after-school gymnastics program. Our younger daughter carries her shovel to the park’s big sandbox. She likes to swing in the baby seat. One time when we go down the slide too fast, my bottom bumps the ground hard. I laugh only after I realize she isn’t hurt. When the pond in the park freezes, Paul supervises our older daughter who walks, wobbles, then takes short strokes on her white, lace-up ice skates—smiling with pride at him as I watch both. I keep an eye on the younger daughter who manages to stay upright on double blades. Before we move for Paul’s next position, he and I watch our older daughter, now in sixth grade, play flute in the middle school orchestra for West Side Story.
We’re amazed to find a “carpenter special” off the town green for our next home and delve into major repairs, including taking out the entire kitchen. I wash dishes in the upstairs bathtub. On crusted snow, I pull our younger daughter by sled to her nursery school, and our older daughter’s eyes widen above her smile when she finds her first skis under the Christmas tree.
In our second year at that second home, after eighteen years of love, a first crack appears in our marriage. We repair our family. I look back at it now as a point marking the end of our unblemished years, and an incident we were as yet unaware of as my entrance into a twenty-six-year period that culminates in my move to India.
When unexpectedly, and surprisingly, “shoofly pie” popped into my mind recently, I had no idea why this Amish treat came to mind. Yet by now, my natural response as a writer is the acceptance that a reason will appear. As I started to write about the origins of shoofly pie, I began to remember the details of those years, and a feeling of their plain goodness came over me. We are still a connected family—our daughters live one on each coast; Paul, in Florida, drives to visit them; and on occasion we meet at a family event; and I fly in for a yearly visit from India.
My realization is, “Situations can promote emotional scars that cause an earlier positive time to dim in memory—yet a simple, uncalculated reminder can welcome it back.”
ABOUT SHOO-FLY PIE . . .
“Don’t let the name scare you away! Shoo-Fly Pie is an Amish, and Lancaster County, pastime that tastes a whole lot better than it sounds. This delicious sensation has been a favorite dessert served on many Amish families’ table for many years.”*
Cookbook author, Phyllis Goodman,* writes of the history of shoofly pie that “early settlers always had the main ingredients: ‘lard, flour, brown sugar and molasses,’ and it could be made ‘year round’ as it didn’t need to be refrigerated.”*
This is Mrs. Fannie Fisher’s recipe found in the Lancaster County Amish Cookbook.*
SHOPPING LIST
Syrup:
1 Cup Molasses
½ Cup Brown Sugar
2 eggs
1 Cup Hot Water
1 Teaspoon baking soda (Dissolved in Hot Water)
Crumbs:
2 Cups Flour
¾ Cup Brown Sugar
⅓ Cup Lard
Put half of syrup in pie crust then add half of crumbs. Add remaining syrup and other half of crumbs. Bake 10 minutes at 400º. Reduce to 350º and bake for 50 minutes. Makes 2 pies.
* Paul Sherburne is the author of several books of fiction and non-fiction, including his latest novel entitled Down Ice Diamonds. You can find out more about his writing and his life at
https://paulsherburne.com/ and you can find his books by searching Paul Sherburne at
www.amazon.com
* www.amishnews.com/amisharticles/shooflypie.htm
* Phyllis Pellman Good researched shoofly pie while compiling, “The Best of Amish Cooking” (Good Books, 1996).
* See www.amishvillage.com/shoo-fly-pie