How To Make a Raisin Pie When You Absolutely Hate Raisins
For raisinists everywhere
Step 1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. I know that there’s a record-breaking heatwave outside. I know you have no air conditioning. I know that preheating your oven will make your house hotter inside than it is outside. So hot that everything, including your refrigerator, will sweat. But this is the pie your grandmother baked for every summer potluck for as long as you’ve been alive, and it’s now your responsibility to carry on the tradition.
DEAL WITH IT, HEATHER.
Step 2. Make the pie crust from scratch. Don’t even think about using a store-bought crust. Know that you will get lard on your hands. Your hands will be coated with rendered pig fat for the day. Your palms and the webbing between your fingers will be slimed. You can wash your hands till the cows come home, but they’ll still be covered in an oily slick, bringing back memories of when your grandmother used to clamp her greasy hand over your face if you dared set foot in her kitchen when she was baking this pie. You can’t wipe it off either, but you can really mess up your dish towels trying. You can wear rubber gloves if you want, but then your hands will smell of glove — the smell of Taking the Easy Way Out.
There is no winning. There is only conceding. Do not substitute shortening for lard. Your grandmother wrote this recipe and she says to use lard.
THIS IS THE HILL YOUR GRANDMOTHER DIED ON, HEATHER.
Step 3. Now lay that pie dough over the pie plate. Look at that unbaked pie crust, inert and harming no one, much like you when you were a little girl. Your grandmother’s recipe says to dock that pie dough with a sharp knife. If you don’t, it will rise up and your pie will be full of air and crust, insulting your grandmother’s memory. So poke that dough. Impale that dough on the blade of your bitterness at having to bake this god-forsaken pie.
THAT DOUGH IS YOUR INNOCENT HEART, HEATHER AND YOUR GRANDMOTHER WANTS YOU TO STAB IT REPEATEDLY
and then put that pie crust in the oven.
Step 4. Make the filling. Grapes are lovely. Grapes are little globes of heaven, plump and succulent and beautifully chilled straight out of the fridge. But you will not use fresh grapes in this pie. You will use raisins, which are grapes that have been slaughtered in their prime and left to desiccate until they become shriveled infarcts of evil. As raisins are hard, knobbly, and ungainly (much like your grandmother’s fists after a few too many) they must be soaked in brandy in order to soften them. Much as your grandmother would soak herself in Cognac to relive her past glory and your Uncle Al now pours Cognac over her grave in hopes of a resurrection. Floating in that booze, those raisins swell, like reanimated corpses, and take on the texture of newborn mice.
IF THE KITCHEN DOESN’T SMELL LIKE GRANDMA ON A BENDER, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG, HEATHER.
Do not add pecans. We do not want the potluck attendees biting into crisp, wholesome, savory nuts. They will find no nice crunch in this pie.
Only a meaty squish.
Step 5. Add two tablespoons of sugar and two cups of vinegar to the filling.
BECAUSE LIFE ISN’T FAIR, HEATHER.
Step 6. Pour that lumpen, mucoid mass of a filling into the warm shell.
Step 7. Now cover that monstrosity with the top crust and crimp it down hard with your thumbs, knowing that half an inch of pastry is no protection against the horror that lies beneath.
Step 8. Cut sigils and runes into that top crust to ward off the malevolence emanating from the pie. It will not work, mind, but it might make you feel better.
DENIAL IS A HELL OF A DRUG, HEATHER.
Step 9. Put the pie in the oven. But remember: that pie is undead, and therefore, like your family’s traditions, it can never die. Nothing can stop it, not the sassafras doll you made in sixth grade and put in the window for protection, not the can of Raid you sprayed all over your grandmother’s headstone on the hill. Not the holy water you sprinkled across your doorstep.
Step 10. Remove this heathen behemoth of a pastry from the maw of the oven and set it on the windowsill to cool and to disperse the putrescent smell. Note how the swollen raisins peeking through the sigil cut-outs of the top crust look exactly like your grandmother’s grinning face.
YOUR GRANDMOTHER HAS RETURNED AND SHE’S NOT HAPPY, HEATHER.
Say a prayer to the Elder Gods. It won’t help, mind.
Surrender all hope as the sound of your grandmother’s cackling fills the kitchen.
Step 11. Cut into slices and enjoy.
