[Sca-cooks] Key Lime Pie (OT)

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

> Greetings,
>
> Similar to the current ... ahem ... discussion ... on gumbo, Key Lime pie
is a regional dish that has gained wide
> popularity outside of it's original region. The end result in many places
has been a evolution (or possibly
> de-evolution) to a lemon meringue made with lime juice instead of lemon.

<Snip>

> Glad Tidings,
> Serena da Riva

Yeah, for what it's worth, that's how I remember it too, but my recipe had
gotten lost long since in a multiplicity of moves. When I was ratting around
in the Keys, friends in Key west, as well as other friends on Marathon and
Isla Morada, had INSISTED that I try the One, True Key Lime Pie, not the
Touristy Ripoff, and of course, when they knew I was coming, made me sit
down and eat the Real Thing. As you can imagine, I objected vociferously
(not).

I like lemon meringue, and I like Imitation (key) lime meringue, but there
really is nothing quite like a real Key Lime Pie. For one thing, the Key
Limes are different from the limes most people are used to seeing. Most
people think of limes as being, essentially, green lemons, the same size,
thick skinned, with a grass green rind instead of a yellow one. Key limes
aren't- they're smaller, and thin skinned, with a different flavor from the
lime most of us are so used to, and the rind is a browner, or more golden,
green. They're like what I imagine early, pre-American tampering citris
fruits might have been like, perhaps even back in period. They're also
fairly scarce compared to the more common limes, and I imagine that's why
the common limes are used in most commercial applications.

And, to wrassle this subject back on to an appearance of topic, when you see
something like the Key Lime Pie being changed to suit Yankee, or at least
Northern prejudices, can perhaps some of you understand why those of us who
are seriously studying Medieval food, try so hard to figure out how the
Medieval folk made something, rather than relying on our Modern tastes and
habit patterns? When what has been called Key Lime Pie has gone from being a
distinct custardy filling in a graham cracker crust, not very well known
outside of Southern Florida to an imitation of a commonly known dish in just
a few decades, it makes you, or at least me, stop to think about what else
has gotten changed in a few hundred years.

Phlip

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....