Saturday 9: Shoo Fly Pie (and Apple Pan Dowdy)

I know… I’m no fun anymore …. We are at war…we just don’t know it yet… this is my last Saturday 9.  I bid you peace.  ☮️ you are all so wonderful.  

Stay sunny! 😎 

Shoo Fly Pie (and Apple Pan Dowdy) – 1946

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

This month Saturday 9 will be tasty, featuring songs with food in the title.

1) Shoo fly pie got its name from Shoo Fly the Boxing Mule. After the Civil War, the mule who could box was such a popular circus attraction that a molasses manufacturer started featuring him on their packaging. Since molasses is the key ingredient of this pie recipe, homemakers just began referring to it as "shoo fly pie." If we looked, would we find molasses in your kitchen?

Yes.  I've used molasses since I started baking as a kid.  My mom used it, too.  I like it better than white sugar.  

Here's a tip:  You can even "make" brown sugar by using granulated sugar with a little molasses stirred through it.

2) Apple pan dowdy is another uniquely American recipe from the 19th century. It's like apple pie, except it only has a top crust, which is broken up. Apples are a good source of fiber, Vitamin C and antioxidants. Do you consider nutrition when choosing a dessert? Or are you just all about how it tastes?  I just consider how it tastes, but fresh fruit is dessert sometimes anyway, and it's plenty sweet as it is. But I've found That since I no longer have a sense of smell after a calamitous fall in the kitchen several years ago , that a baked dessert usually is tasteless unless it's sweetened quite a lot.  I basically can only taste, the fab four.  Sweet, sour, bitter and salt.    

3) The lyrics describe these two desserts as the ultimate comfort foods, able to make "the sun come out when the heavens are cloudy." Do you find that the foods you crave change with your mood?  Yes.  Especially anything with dark chocolate in it, I can't taste it but the sweet and the texture and lovely memories of it carry it off.  And, I love, LOVE salty things.

4) Singer June Christy pleads with her mama to whip up this "wonderful stuff." Did your mother have a dish you often requested?  Having been raised on a farm, we ate what was before us, and didn't request anything other than the fudge Mom occasionally made from Hershey's cocoa. Later on, she had a job at the See's Candy Store, but it was a neighbor gave her the recipe for "See's Candy Fudge", really a reverse engineering coup, which I have made many, many times over the years. The newer ones printed on the back of the marshmallow jars are creamier but just as good. If my original card hasn't walked off with one of the kids, I still have the recipe mother wrote out.   

5) June was born in Springfield, Illinois' capital. Have you been to your state's capital city?  No, and probably because we stay along the mountains going north through Bishop, or stay on the coast when we go north to San Francisco.  The state capital is in the valley between. I once had a pen pal who lived there, and I wanted to go see her, but the pandemic and and a knee operation but "Paid" to that little excursion. 

6) June spent years singing with Stan Kenton's Orchestra. At one point, she gave 38 performances in 35 towns in 35 days. That's a busy schedule! Do you thrive on activity? Or do you find yourself rejuvenated by quiet time? At my age, quiet time is absolutely a great, and desired, event.  I've run around little a headless chicken so long in this life, that having time to "lolligag" is pure Heaven.  

7) In 1946, when this record was popular, bikinis were first seen in Paris fashion shows. How often have you worn your swimsuit this summer?  

😆😆     

8) Also in 1946, Elias Tupper invented Tupperware, a plastic container with an airtight top that's great for preserving leftovers. Are there any leftovers in your refrigerator right now?  Hold on.  I need to got look.  Well, I have a shed load of it.  It's lovely.... but I'm not the cook anymore so I must investigate whether my chemist Hubby has is growing any interesting Mold Cultures  in the fridge.....

9) Random question: Is there a day of the week that goes by faster than the others?  The day before the one with a doctor's appointment in it.