American Pie

America’s soul lies in the heartland. We are a nation with incredible natural gifts. Two ocean shores, multiple soaring mountain ranges and endless farmland are amazing natural gifts. When you grow up in the suburban shadow, of the great Northeast cities, things like cows and corn fields are a novelty, a sideshow, sort of like a living zoo. As a child, I remember long drives to the Catskills and marveling at the Moo Moos, horses, goats and sheep roaming their farms. Perfect rows of corn stalks filled the meadows and apple trees dotted the hillsides. Wildflowers still decorate the shoulder with a bouquet of color. Life was bursting out everywhere. I can remember eating green apples off the trees at Rosmarin’s bungalow colony. These childhood memories are forever kindled every time I get into the rural Northeast and see farms dot the landscape.

Farmers work those endless farmlands. They live this monastic lifestyle, working insane hours and we are lucky to have such people doing the hard work for us. In our own state, New Jersey ranks among the top three producers in the USA of cranberries, bell peppers and spinach. Cucumbers, tomatoes and Blueberries are all in the top seven. This state produces enough farm to YOUR Table food. The farm market season, from May to October, is like a traveling rock band these days, with stops in every suburban town, on different days of the week. All of these entrepreneurs are selling everything from baked goods to olive oil or fresh vegetables to frozen entrees. Many of the farms send their young employees to host these traveling fruit and vegetable markets. Some of these farms have stand alone locations at the home farm. The search for the best Pie always brings us back to the home farm. That is our Wake and Bake tour this week.

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Truthfully I am not a good judge of pie. My parents never served any fruit pie. I do not recall fruit pie at any occasion. My Uncle Joe owned a luncheonette in Cranford. I remember spinning stools but I do not remember any pie. We were a cake family. All my parents friends were cake families. Most Americans prefer cake, by a small margin, to pie but pie seems to have a deeper emotional connection for some people. Some people bring all their experience to the pie.

It seems some parts of the country have preferences for certain pie. New York and New Jersey like Boston Cream Pie, which really is more cake than pie, but we are contrarians by nature. Western states, outside the Pacific NW, go for the pumpkin pie. Southern states are passionate about pecan pie. And the Midwest loves a bowl of cherry pie. Overall, Apple Pie remains the favorite American pie and a favorite in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Nebraska. There seems to be no political affiliation we can assign to any type of pie lover but it does seem likely if your dinner guests prefer pumpkin or pecan pie they probably voted for Trump.

Wherever you are reading this you probably have a favorite farm and favorite pie. It our nature to favor one from another, your hometown bakery or farm, to someplace “other” than your favorite. As someone who has no experience with pie I did not know the difference between average and great pie (If you have a favorite pie please let us know in the comments). My local farm market is Dreyer Farms, family owned since 1906 in Cranford, and I have never bought their pie but I do love their homemade donuts and buy their produce. I may not be a return customer for pie, but thousands of other Union County residents keep coming back. The Wake and Bake tour sampled pies from five different locations this week and I did find some great pie.

My first stop was on Thursday at Sorrento bakery in East Hanover. This traditional bakery and lunch stop has a great reputation for chocolate cream pie. This pompadour of cream and chocolate looks deliciously decadent and is filled with abundant flavor. My taste testers, bridge players Bob and David, were very surprised by the subtle flavors embedded in this tornado funnel of chocolate and cream. I found the pie to be overwhelming. Too much of a good thing.

I traveled to Deal, the Syrian Riviera, on Friday and that gave me the opportunity to visit the farm orchards and markets of Monmouth County. I decided to buy three apple pies for comparison and one four berry pie to test on Saturday. I bought the pies from different types of stores. Dearborn Market in Holmdel, a Wakefern corporate bakery, bakes everything on the premises. Delicious Orchards in Colts Neck is over 100 years old, has over 2.5 million yearly visitors and is still privately owned by one family. If you are planning a day trip to Monmouth County, Delicious Orchards and Bell Works(in Holmdel) are worth your time. Wemrock Orchards, since 1952, and Battleground Orchards, since 1908 in the Freehold area, are much more traditional and modest farm markets compared to Delicious Orchards. All of the orchards in Monmouth County have adopted these multi-layer streams of income for their farms. They use direct retail from their storefronts. They let customers interact directly with their fruit trees with pick your own harvests. Corn rows can become mazes for Halloween entertainment. These are not your grandfather’s traditional farms.

I brought the Apple Pie back to the office Friday afternoon and forced my employees to be Mikey. “Let Mikey try it”.. There was a consensus reached and the favorite Apple Pie was from Delicious Orchards. I thought it was the sweetest of the pies but it had a soft squishy crust and my eating experience tasted more like apple sauce than apple pie. And I love apple sauce since I was a child. It was the only thing that saved me from boiled chicken dinners on Friday night. But that is another story. Please do not get me wrong. We enjoyed the pie from all the stores but I did not feel any particular pie stood out from the other. They all were good. None were great.

There still was one four berry pie left from Delicious Orchards. I wanted to compare that pie to another four berry pie from Wightman Farms, family owned and operated since 1922 in Morristown, or from Melick’s Town Farms, family owned and operated in Califon and Oldwick for three centuries, the largest apple grower in the state of New Jersey. My DIL was able to get to Melick’s and the last stop turned out to be the best stop. When you look at those two cakes (above) the Melick’s cake is glistening and the DO cake looks dull. Melick’s crust has crunch to it and the base does not fall apart like the DO crust and bottom layer. The very berry filling was not sticky and thick like the DO version. I was very impressed at first bite. I am beginning to discern the difference between average and great pie. Get the Melick’s pie.

Melick Orchards and Delicious Orchards have been putting healthy food on New Jersey food tables for decades. The pies are the sideshow, the toppings and the business card that keeps us coming back for the bell peppers, sweet peaches and summer corn. In this modern world of processed foods and industrial agriculture it is our good fortune to be able to access fresh fruits and vegetables through Community Supported Agriculture ( CSA) programs at local farms. The quality of our food supply would be sharply reduced if that option was not available to the consumer. America’s heartland is linked to family owned farms and the farmers who keep it all going.

Support your hometown pie baker and farmer. Eat American Pie….

Peace to Everyone

Not everyone is as fortunate as we might be, so I want to leave you all with a plug for this volunteer farm cooperative in Pittstown, NJ. Grow a Row , in Pittstown, NJ. , helps put healthy freshly grown fruits and vegetables into the hands of many charitable food organizations. You can volunteer as an organized group or as an individual. They also have education programs for high school and middle school organizations or school districts. Many young people, including most suburban kids, are never exposed to how plants and vegetables grow. Bringing those students to feel and touch the ground can change lives. This organization of volunteers and donors distributes over two million pounds of vegetables and fruit each year in the metropolitan area. That is how you make a difference. Please give them a minute of your time.