According to me, you get total pie street credit if you’re from the South. If you have an accent and hail from any of the states below Ohio, I automatically assume that you are harboring your Great Grandma’s family pie recipe and that you know some worldly secrets about great pie making. After all, don’t you Southerners learn to make pie just after you learn to pour yourself a bowl of cereal? But alas, this is just a dream as I have never been to the Deep South and therefore never had the chance to taste what real southern pie is all about.
Like the saying goes, if you can’t go South, go to Whole Foods! I have never tasted sweet potato pie and have always been drawn to the sheer comfort of the idea. With Greater Cleveland being slim on the pickings for pie, I figured Whole Foods was my best bet for one that would at least be close to the real thing. And there they were! Displayed with a photograph of a lovely employee whose recipe was so good that Whole Foods adopted it for their stores in the Midwest. Jackpot! I enjoyed this sweet potato pie, but the crust was very soft and mushy making the dish taste more like pudding – no texture combination of the snap of a crisp crust followed by the smooth, creamy filling. So once again, I set out to do better. And I did. This pie puts the OH! in sweet potato.
