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William Orten Carlton = ORT.
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT & BEER EDITOR FOR THE FLAGPOLE
EYES ON THE PIES
Ever since I have been old enough to
hold a spoon I have been fascinated by food
and its making. 1 especially remember
watching my Grandmother make bread —
she lived with us — and when I became big
enough, I would help her beat the batter. I
won’t tell you that I am a cook, but it was a
step in that direction.
Like every little kid, one day I licked
out the chocolate icing bowl when 1 was
no more than six
years old, and my
Dad caught it on
film. This surely
captures the spirit
of the pre-Ort.
Ort., an eater even
then; a Future
Trencherman Of
America.
When I became
old enough to trav
el, 1 began noticing
regional differences in food and foodstuffs
— and catalogued some of them away in my
cluttered brain. I have written about liver-
mush, which is one of my very favorite
things in the world. I discovered that delica
cy on a 1972 roadtrip to North Carolina!
Another thing I am especially fond of, but
am able to eat very rarely because of the
sugar content, is fried pies. Not the large-
scale-manufactured ones that come from
major bakers, but the ones from local
providers — distributed over perhaps only a
three-or-four county area. The best of these
melt in your mouth like fresh-fallen snow,
leaving a fruity taste (depending on what the
filling was) that lingers, often tart and sweet
at the same time. And the very best ones are
absolutely not overpoweringly sweet!
My favorite type of fried pies are sweet
potato, which are made by very few bakers.
It is a lucky person indeed who runs across
truly well-made local sweet potato fried
pies in a roadside grocery. Wash one down
with a Double Cola,
and you are in high
cotton.
1 digress a tad to
think about Mrs.
Annie Lou Bonner,
whose restaurant in
Crawfordviile was
as legendary as her
famed sweet tater
pies. “Sweet pota
toes are sweet
enough without
sugar!” she chided someone who asked her
why she didn’t use any sugar in her pie
recipe. “And you don’t need sweetened
sweet potatoes, either. Just the plain
unsweetened ones out of the can will do
just fine, or better yet use some fresh from
the market. Add a tad of vanilla extract.
That’s all you need.” I also like a little grat
ed coconut (preferably fresh coconut) and
a small pinch of cinnamon. Mrs. Bonner’s
pies are the round kind, sold by the slice;
baked in an oven, not fiied.
When visiting in Chapel Hill, North
Carolina several years ago, I was turned on
to a local fried pie maker in Winston-Salem
that made pies under the B. & G. label. I
tried every variety that I could find: there
were at least nine, including cherry, lemon,
apple, peach, sweet potato, chocolate,
pineapple, coconut, and raisin — those are
the ones that I remember, anyhow. “They
sel! out of raisin first," my friend Mike told
me, “so if you find that kind, grab it up.
quick." I took his advice and was deeply
rewarded. F. G. pies are still common
place in piedmont North Carolina.
When 1 lived in Nashville, Term., 1 lucked
up on a local fried pie maker’s wares:
Armstrong’s Homestyle Turnovers, made by
Armstrong Pie Co. in
Centerville, Tenn.
Again, they made
numerous flavors.
They were more
common in Columbia
and Franklin than
they were in
Nashville, although
quite a few “mom-
and-pop” stores in
Music City carried
them. -
Several of my
favorite restaurants in Nashville also made
their own fried pies, in somewhat varying
degrees of succulence. One establishment.
The Ranch House, located on Gallatin Pike,
turned out the melt-in-your-mouth kind. “I
use only Crisco oil to fry them.” owner/chef
Porter Neal told me deliberately. “My moth
er tells me that mine are better than hers
ever were." I was immediately thankful that
Porter and his partner Harvey (whose last
name I forget) gave up teaching to run that
eatery. I understand that it is still in busi
ness.
It was a real treat to run across Hubig’s
Pies on my visit to New Orleans in 1995! 1
tiied every flavor that I could find. Their
factory is downtown off of Decatur Street in
the Bywater District near Faubourg
Marigny. They produce a host of other
products as well, but my favorite was their
individual pies, some of which are turnover
style, a few of which come in little round
aluminum pans, and several of which are
cello-wrapped for sale by the slice.
On the last trip I took to West Georgia a
couple of years ago, I stopped at a truck
stop in Villa Rica or Temple (1 forget which),
just off 1-20. Was I amazed to run across
locally-produced fried pies, from a bakery
in Carrollton! (1 think the name of the place
is Cake Shop Too.)
The inspiration for this column came
the other night when 1 noticed three flavors
of fried pies at
Barnett’s: Tender Fry
Sweet Potato Pie,
Apple Fried Pie, and
Peach Fried Pie.
These are from
Tender Fry Corp. in
Paw Creek, N.C.
28130, a section of
Charlotte with a sep
arate post office. I
devoured one of
each and found them
to be quite good;
close to homemade in terms of “realness”
— and absolutely devoid of the cloying
sweetness that many brands have. Nor are
the outsides dripped with sugar coating! 1
wished I had a Diet Sundrop Golden Cola as
accompaniment to do justice to them.
In my travels around this area, I will con
tinue to look for fried pies and report back
sooner or later. If anyone knows of any
brands that are available hereabouts — or
in your home stomping ground — you can
e-mail me here, send me a fax, or drop me a
note.
Gracious, it makes a feller glad to be a
South oner, don’t It? (30.)
©1696 William Oftaa Garttoa.
TENDER FRY.
SWEET POTATO PIE
INGREDIENTS: Waiw. Sw*el Potatoes. Floor. Partial**
Hydroceneled Vegetable OH (Soybean and Cottonseed oV). Mono
and Lnglycertde. Leathn. Sugar. Modified Food Starch. Salt.
Cinnamon. Mace. Ginger. Nutmeg. Cloves. Sodium Prop-anate added
to retard spoilage
NET WT.
4 OZ (113.4g)
' 0
38418
43434"" 6
UFG FOR TENDER FRY CORP
P.0 BOX 665 • PAW CREEK. NC 28130
It is a lucky person
indeed who runs
across truly well-
made local sweet
potato fried pies in a
roadside grocery.
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IS FLAGPOLE JULY 22, 1998