What’s Your Pie Appeal?

How attractive are your shut, open and bar pies, as Grandmother classified the pies she baked? (We refer to them as 2-crust, 1-crust and openface pies.) Many of today’s cooks are not the top-crust artists their mothers and grandmothers were. If you want to fix pies with fancy tops and pretty edges, read the suggestions in Chapter 2. Perhaps we also can take a few lessons from old-time Dutch or German women in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Connecticut and North Carolina, who excelled in creating beautiful pies (extra good) with tools commonplace in their kitchens—the 4-tined fork, for instance.