Editor’s Note: Crook’s Corner closed its doors on July 9, 2021, after nearly 40 years.
When I was growing up in New Bern in the ’50s, people believed as absolute truth that if you ate dessert after a meal of seafood, you would probably die. In the back of my mind, I thought that maybe this rule was just a way to trick me into eating fewer sweets. There was one exception, though: lemon pie.
If you asked why, you were told something about lemon and fish. Therefore, many seafood restaurants on North Carolina’s coast served Atlantic Beach Lemon Pie, if no other dessert.
The best thing about the pie wasn’t the lemon flavor, but its salty, cracker-crumb crust — made with Ritz or saltine crackers — which distinguished it from sweet piecrusts made with crushed cookies or graham crackers.
I remembered that pie when I was asked to teach a group of chefs and food writers from the Southern Foodways Alliance about eastern North Carolina’s food traditions. After some research — a phone call here, an old church cookbook there — and some experimentation, I developed my version of the Atlantic Beach Lemon Pie.
The original had meringue, but I opted for whipped cream sprinkled with coarse sea salt. I crumbled saltine crackers for the crust. My recipe requires half a cup of lemon or lime juice, or a mix of both, and condensed milk. I served the pie to 600 Southern Foodways guests, and then brought the recipe back to my restaurant, Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill.
To my surprise, the pie became a sensation. Word of it eventually reached Melissa Gray, who has a series called “Found Recipes” that airs on NPR’s “All Things Considered.”
We did a segment together, and when the story aired on a Thursday, almost immediately my staff started saying that we were running out of Atlantic Beach Pie.
The next day, my baker made more pies, but customers cleaned us out again. This went on all weekend.
And just when I thought the phenomenon of Atlantic Beach Pie had subsided, I got an email from the Atlanta Food and Wine Festival. Could I make Atlantic Beach Pie for 700 people? Of course.
This pie will be the death of me.
Yield: 1 pie.
1½ sleeves of saltine crackers
3 tablespoons sugar
⅓ to ½ cup softened unsalted butter
4 egg yolks
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
½ cup lemon or lime juice, or a mix of the two
Fresh whipped cream and coarse sea salt for garnish
Preheat oven to 350˚. Crush the crackers finely, but not to dust. You can use a food processor or your hands. Add the sugar, then knead in the butter until the crumbs hold together like dough. Press into an 8-inch pie pan. Chill for 15 minutes, then bake for 18 minutes or until the crust colors a little.
While the crust is cooling (it doesn’t need to be cold), beat the egg yolks into the milk, then beat in the citrus juice. It is important to completely combine these ingredients. Pour into the shell and bake for 16 minutes until the filling has set. The pie needs to be completely cold to be sliced.
Serve with fresh whipped cream and a sprinkling of sea salt.
print it
North Carolina is known for many things, but nothing more important this week than the qualities of endurance, resilience, and hope.
By day, this adventure park in the Triad is a fall festival to die for. By night, the undead come alive for Halloween tricks. Welcome to one man’s vision of year-round merrymaking.
North Carolina’s border dances across the mountains as it traces four different states. Life here can be more remote, but good neighbors are never far away.
The Blue Ridge Parkway stands out among America’s national parks: Unfurling across six Appalachian mountain chains, it connects dozens of rural communities and binds together generations of families through shared memories.
