Pie making abroad

We recently took a longish trip to Europe. It was amazing, and I owe special thanks to our wonderful hosts who drove us all over the place. Really, I cannot thank them enough for everything, perhaps most of all giving us a chance to step back from our cluttered lives in the US and give us a chance to soak in a more relaxed culture.

While there, we went to a farmers' market where I bought a couple kilos of apples and a kilo of pears to make a pie. When we got back to the house, I realized how dependent I had become on the array of kitchen gadgets I use to reduce pie-making time. We brought along a dough blender at our hostess' requests, but my apple peeler/slicer, baking mat, multiple sets of measuring tools, giant rolling pin and food processor were an ocean away. Our host's kitchen was beautiful, clean and very well stocked, but I learned my "gadget-neediness" to my own chagrin.

More helpfully, this led me to think about what the real "minimum equipment list" is for making a pie. This list is important because it bears directly on the industrial capacity required of a PMCIN=1 society. I believe it consists of:

(1) A good cleaning cloth and a supply of clean water (~5L/pie)

(2) A very sharp pairing knife

(3) 75cm x 100cm countertop for crust rolling

(4) A large (3-4L) mixing bowl

(5) A measuring cup and spoon (scales also work)

(6) Pie plate

(7) Minimum 50cm x 50cm x 50cm oven.

Sorry for the metric units here, but these reflections happened in Europe, and Google, the generous host of this blog, offers a fantastic unit conversion service.

Interestingly, the largest industrial need, and thus environmental impact, of pie making consists of clean water. The electricity for the oven came, at least in part, from a wind farm about 2km away from the house. The water, on the other hand, had to be pumped from a well, treated, pressurized and piped to the house. After use it had to be piped to another treatment center, cleaned and discharged into a suitable environment. Unlike the wind turbine, knife, dishes and oven, this has to happen with every pie. Nothing like international travel to give you an interesting look at life. Also interestingly, with only a pairing knife, I wound up peeling more apple off the outside. However, I saved considerably more fruit by not throwing away hole cores, as I do at home, instead cutting away only the inedible segments near the seeds.

Also, European fruit, at least in the market we bought it, is much denser than American varieties. It's very important, therefore, to cut it up much smaller than comparable American apples and pears. It may also be necessary to pre-cook some fruit, as Ken suggests in his "French Apple Pie" recipe, which is an adaptation of a French apple tart. Note that this adds a skillet and stove to the list above, but does not substantially change the water requirement.

The next place I need to go is an undeveloped rural community. I will do my best to bring along items 1-6, ovens being a bit hard to transport, but I may have to add "shovel, metal box and charcoal" or "large pot and cooking fire." I wonder if there's a Fulbright for culinary adventures . . .