NC Pie Series: What comes at the end is always remembered: the goodnight kiss, the famous last words, the three-point shot at the buzzer, the homemade pie following a fine meal. What’s a plate of flounder in Calabash or oysters on the Outer Banks without a slice of lemon meringue, served on a Styrofoam plate with a plastic fork? Can you imagine a rib eye at the Angus Barn in Raleigh without the grand finale — that famous chocolate chess, drizzled with syrup, dolloped with whipped cream? What of the perfectly fried chicken at Mama Dip’s in Chapel Hill, culminating with a slice of sweet potato or pecan? Sure, we love our cakes, cobblers, and banana puddings, but pie provides the sweetest memories.
“The Jarrett House was the first North Carolina restaurant I ever ate in,” Karen Barker remembers. Like the Jarrett House itself, she and her husband, Ben, are culinary legends around here — for their iconic, award-winning restaurant, The Magnolia Grill, which lived in Durham from 1986 to 2012. Years before that, when Ben was a student at Western Carolina University, he worked at the Jarrett House as a server, Karen says, and ate a slice of vinegar pie “every shift he worked.”
The cozy inn was a fixture amid the mountains in Dillsboro for more than a century — it opened in 1884 and just recently closed — and the vinegar pie was arguably its most famous offering. This old-school, Southern dessert is a classic “desperation” or “make-do” or “pantry” pie. In other words, a recipe that relies on kitchen staples versus seasonal, perishable ingredients. Instead of using apples, say, use apple cider vinegar. And instead of using buttermilk, use a lot of melted butter. The result is as humble as it is addictive.
Jarrett House
100 Haywood Road
Dillsboro, NC 28575
(828) 586-0265
jarretthouse.com
1 stick margarine, melted and cooled
1½ cups sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
3 eggs
1 (9-inch) pie shell, unbaked
Combine the first six ingredients and pour into the unbaked pie shell. Bake at 300º for 45 minutes.
North Carolina Pie Series: Lemon Milk Pie
Eat, shop, learn, and celebrate what North Carolina has to offer this month.
In North Carolina, Thanksgiving pies — pecan, apple, sweet potato, pumpkin — have deep roots in farms from the mountains to the Coastal Plain. When bakeries wrap these homegrown ingredients in a buttery crust, pie makes perfect.
Happy fall, y’all! We’re celebrating the season with a North Carolina-themed jack-o’-lantern carve-off — and we want to see your skills! Find out how to enter our Instagram giveaway.
Give thanks for pie! Creamy chocolate walnut; sweet potato covered in a buttery, crunchy topping; classic, custardy pumpkin — these favorites are fit for a feast.
