Ode to One Pie

There are a lot of things I love about New England: fresh seafood, colorful leaves, ornery folks. But something I especially love is the variety of old-fashioned regional foods. Chief among these is One Pie, and chiefest among the One Pie varieties is the squash. Squash is at once deliciously bizarre sounding and ordinary. At some times of the late summer the squash is so common, and then so abundant in Ziploc freezer bags, that the thought of buying commercially canned squash would be ridiculous. But yet for many New England cooks the One Pie squash is both secret weapon and, I think, uniquely odd thing that we embrace simply because we are known for embracing uniquely odd things.

It’s darn near impossible to find much about One Pie (of West Paris, Maine) on the Internet, but what I do find definitely falls into the “ornery New Englanders” category. Pretty much all I found was a bunch of complaints from Thanksgiving 2007 that the recipe for squash pie on the labels everyone bought was wrong. Seems the recipe is supposed to call for 20 minutes of baking at one temperature and then another spell of baking at a lower temperature. But somehow the labels most cooks ended up with last fall had just the 20-minute bake mentioned. Awful lot of angry cooks. What I don’t understand is, you say you’ve been using One Pie Squash to make yer Thanksgiving pie for yer whole life, and yer mother before ya too. So how come when you read the label and it says to bake it for just 20 minutes you thought that all of a sudden this year it would be different? This observation also flies in the face of the Hardy and Thrifty New Englander stereotype: I would have thought these people would be cooking their squash pie from an old label they tore off a can years ago and saved. I know I have a One Pie label kicking around somewhere around here.

Ah, the labels. Probably the best thing about One Pie is the old-fashioned typography and design of the label. The only other thing I found online about One Pie was a blog entry from some sort of city folk about the label. It even features nearly the same photo I took of my One Pie can: http://brooklynometry.blogspot.com/2007/12/one-pie.html

Only the photo of my can of One Pie is probably the best kind: a freshly emptied can.

Here are some of my favorite recipes featuring One Pie:

SQUASH

Ann’s Pumpkin Cookies

(OK, so these are supposed to be made with the pumpkin. But one time in college we wanted to make them but all we had was squash in the pantry. I actually liked them better with the squash and make them with squash whenever I can.)

Ingredients:

• 1 can of canned squash or pumpkin
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup oil (or applesauce for low-fat version)
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp baking soda, dissolved in 1 tsp. of water
• Optional: nuts, chocolate chips, etc.

Directions: Mix all the ingredients together. Put cookie-sized blobs of mix on a greased cookie sheet and bake in a 375 degree oven for 12-15 minutes. The cookies come out the way they look when they go in. You can also make these cookies with fresh pumpkin or squash but it makes the mix runnier, so adjust accordingly.

PUMPKIN

Ina Garten’s recipe for Soupe au Potiron. It’s a French recipe that she says is usually made with potirons, a kind of French pumpkin. But she recommends using canned pumpkin.

BONUS!

And here is a recipe for something I just tried. It was super easy and turned out fine, although I think it needs a little more flavor: Penne With Pumpkin Cream Sauce from the magazine Everyday With Rachael Ray.

As always, I made it with Romano cheese instead because I didn’t have any fresh Parmesan, with a tiny bit of garlic because I didn’t have any onions, and with a mix of half-and-half and 1 percent milk because I didn’t have any heavy cream. Still, not bad. Probably just needed a little more cheese.