Day 725: 5 Minute Freewrite: Tuesday - Prompt: pecan

Mrs. Onyx Baxter over at the Church in the Midst of Life in Big Loft, VA loved mid-October … it was time to start making pecan pies.

This was the only time when you would find Mrs. Baxter expressing prejudice about color.

“Don't bring me scarcely-roasted pale pecans, light corn syrup, and white sugar. NO. Well-roasted pecans, molasses or black cane syrup, dark brown sugar, and cinnamon – if the pie ain't the color of Rev. Baxter, it isn't made right.”

Don't even get Mrs. Baxter started on yellow pecan pies – where white sugar and light corn syrup had been combined with one too many eggs, thus creating a custard for the pie that tasted like scrambled eggs with a ton of sugar and a few pecans sprinkled on top. That would get the minister's wife as close to cussing someone out as you would ever see her.

And then there were the new wrinkles – pecan pies with chocolate chips added, pecan pies made with agave nectar and sugar substitutes, pecan pies made with cream cheese mixed into the filling … while she would not bash the “21st century editions,” she would not allow them to be served for the ministries at the church she put together.

No. Some traditions were not to be fooled around with. For a 9-inch pan: buttery crust, a cup of molasses or black cane syrup, a cup of brown sugar, three eggs, and as many pecans as will fit – at least 1.5 cups, or get a 10-inch pan and put two whole cups of pecans in there.

“It's a pecan pie – P-E-C-A-N,” she said. “Never trust any food which doesn't have the ingredient in the name as the first and most abundant ingredient.”

(Author's note: although Mrs. Baxter is a fictional character, the recipe she uses is NOT fictional -- that's the recipe I use at home in California to serve church folks from the South and Tuskegee Airmen to rave reviews, although occasionally I do bend enough to use dark maple syrup -- Grade B ONLY -- in the springtime)