American Agricultural Fairs and Some Rhubarb Custard Pie

Recipes, such as for a Rhubarb Custard Pie, truly demonstrates the importance of a balance of flavors within a dish. Rhubarb by itself has a very bitter flavor to be able to eat it somewhat plain, I dip the rhubarb in sugar before each bite. Therefore the object of the cooks that created the rhubarb custard pie recipe must make the custard sweet enough in order to create a balance.

Usually, we never make just a plain rhubarb pie, the majority of the time strawberries are also a key ingredient, but I wanted to try something a little different than what my mother usually makes. I will admit right now that I did not make the pie crust, my mom and I bought some when we went to the store to buy ingredients. After I laid out the pie crust in the dish and removed any excess, I began mixing what will soon be the filling and then poured it into the dish. This recipe taught me something new I had never known before. Before placing the second pie crust over the top of the pie, I had to "dot the pie with two tablespoons of butter." I had no idea what that entailed until my mom so graciously told me that means to space small chunks of butter throughout the whole pie. Once I finished making the pie, I put it in the oven to cook. When I went to clean up my mess, I was pleasantly surprised to find left over pie crust dough. As a tradition in my household, extra pie crust dough is used to make one of my favorite pastries, a butterhorn.

History...

For this entry I will not tell you the origins of rhubarb pie, instead I will share with you a piece of American cultural that originated in small rural farming towns all throughout the nation, a celebration that revolves around culinary and husbandry skills, Agricultural Fairs. Once a year in the summer months, small rural towns devote days and sometimes even weeks to festivities. At these fairs, farmers show of their prized crops in different forms including pickled and canned fruits and vegetables. Pastries, such as cakes, pies and cookies, as well as jams are also popular on the fair grounds. Throughout the course of the fair, contests take place, judging who made the best pie, or who grew the best vegetables, or who raised the best pigs. By the end of the fair, the judges choose a winner in all the categories that exist and they take home the blue ribbon! Agricultural fairs in American have always been run in this fashion, though today the fairs main purpose is to commemorate the life of the farmer in rural America before the introduction of supermarkets, in a simpler era of the United States. Agricultural fairs remember a time when woman could stay at home and cook, keep house, and assist their husbands instead of being forced to acquire jobs in town, a time when people prized their best vegetables and the balance of flavors they could create in pies such as a rhubarb custard pie.