Day 347: Fig Pie

Today I enjoyed a Christmas gathering with my mother’s side of the family. I’d planned to bring something I’d made from The New Galt Cook Book (1898) but chickened out of bringing an untested recipe. Instead I made the Chocolate Pie from day 295 since I know it is delicious and it was well received. Now I’m home and settling in to make tonight’s recipe. I’ve decided to try Fig Pie using a recipe contributed by Mrs. Risk.

I’m going to cut this recipe in half since I can’t imagine needing four fig pies. I chopped up 1 1/2 cups of figs and put them in a pot with 1 3/4 cups of water. I added 1 1/4 cups of sugar and stirred well before turning on the heat. Next I tried to figure out how to add the lemon. Is it the juice and peel or is it slices of lemon or lemon slices chopped? I decided to cut a lemon in half and then slice it finely before adding to the pot. I stirred the mixture occasionally as it cooked. It took about 20 minutes of boiling to become a bit thick. The surprise was the way the inside of the figs disappeared leaving the harder outside. Clearly it is important to chop the figs very fine. I put the mixture in a jar to store in the fridge until needed but I also kept some to taste.

Mrs. Risk is Mary Miller Elliott. She was born in August 1866 to Scottish born Thomas and Mary. They’d had four boys and then two girls including Mary who was the youngest. She married Charles Muirhead Risk on Christmas Day 1889 in Galt Ontario. Charles was a machinist from Toronto at the time of their marriage. A few years later the 1891 census shows the young couple living with her parents, brother, sister, a lodger … and their brand new baby girl Ellen or Ella. They had two more children and continued to live with family. Mary died of Bright’s disease in 1924 when she was just 59 years old. Charles died the next year of pernicious anaemia.

Although I didn’t put the filling in a pie crust yet I did taste the mixture. Surprise — it tastes of figs and lemon. Really, it is sweet and seedy and won’t appeal unless you like figs. I liked the flavour but I’m still not a big fan of figs. The filling will make a very dense and rich tasting pie. In the 1890s figs were sold to grocers by the box and there were several varieties available. According to prices listed in an 1898 December issue of The Canadian Grocer magazine there were 10 pound and 28 pound boxes of Naturals and Tapnets. This seems to be describing the packing method. There are also ads talking about Eleme and Comadra Figs as well as pricing figs for table versus cooking use. I have no idea what any of this means but I think it refers to different varieties or sources of figs.

FIG PIE
Mrs. Risk

Three cupfuls of figs, cut finely, two and a half cupfuls of sugar, three and a half cupfuls of water, one lemon, boil till thick, make four pies.