Lemon Meringue Pie: The Perfect Desert for a Recession Christmas

Dessert in most homes is perhaps the most celebrated part of the Christmas Day menu. In researching my book Hog and Hominy http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14638-8/hog-and-hominy, I conducted some thirty interviews with African Americans and European Americans, most of them born before 1945. Some never left the South, and others were southerners or the children of southerners who migrated to metropolitan New York. These were oral histories during which I asked seniors to talk about their Christmas memories from their childhood. Many of them had vivid memories of dessert. For example, “my mother made banana pudding, sweet potato pie, you know, apple pie, lemon meringue pie, and cakes,” said Ruth Thorpe Miller of Harlem. Her mother migrated to New York from Savannah, Georgia and raised her children during the depression. When life gave Ruth’s mom lemons during the Depression, she made a lemon meringue pie! Check out these recipes for lemon meringue pie.

Lemon Meringue Pie Recipes:

Traditional: http://southernfood.about.com/od/lemonpierecipes/r/bl50416e.htm

Vegan: http://vegetarian.about.com/od/desertrecipes/r/lemonmeringue.htm