Whoever invented pie should be given the Congressional Medal of Honor, a key to the city and a $25 gift card redeemable at any Dunkin’ Donuts.
Pies can be baked and eaten at any ol’ time of the year, and indeed I’ve munched on blueberry pies in August as an alternative to birthday cake, which is good but leaves my stomach feeling like it just got suckerpunched by a brass-knuckled stealth ninja.
Thanksgiving through Christmas, however, marks the official pie season. Bring ’em on. Blueberry, pecan, cherry, pumpkin -- these are your marquee pies, the crème de la crème, and if it were in any way acceptable I’d push aside my main course and just bury my face in a giant mound of this delicious dessert. There’s a classic scene in “Scarface” in which Tony Montana sits in an office in his drug-financed mansion and plops his nose in a mini-mountain of cocaine, coming up for air with a trace of powder still clinging to his beak. That’s me and pie. Only pie is more addictive.
Upping one’s pie consumption during the holiday season makes a certain amount of sense, as long as you don’t examine the logic too closely. (And I don’t). Overindulgence is a form of celebration, after all, and this stretch of the year is all about celebrating. Snarfing confectionary goodies for weeks on end may result in an expanded waistline, but that actually plays into pie season’s second big advantage: storing up fat for the winter. If you’re prone to pie-binging this time of year, don’t fret -- just think of yourself as less of a person and more of a hibernating bear. In fact, if you push past the cramps and polish off the last slice of Grammy Mildred’s famous apple pie, you may even start to look like a Maine grizzly.
Really, the only downside to hopping on the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas pie train is that it follows so closely behind Halloween and its Snickers aesthetic. Just when you’ve plowed through a half-bag of fun-sized Baby Ruth bars and can see to the bottom of your candy dish, Turkey Day knocks on your front door and hands you a steaming plate of meat, sugar and assorted animal organs. Christmas is only a slightly less egregious offender. There’s a reason why gym memberships spike in January: because people lapse in their exercise, yes, but also because the holidays force upon us a sultan’s hedonistic diet. It takes several sweat-soaked sessions on the elliptical to rid yourself of that pican paunch, and by the time you do, it’s Thanksgiving again and you wonder why you even bother.
We subject ourselves to this cycle because pie is worth it, and not just for the flavor.
During most of the year, my family’s kitchen isn’t exactly bursting with sensory stimuli. There’s an occasional smell of coffee or eggs, there’s a nice warmth that comes in through the window when the sun slants in jaggedly, and the linoleum is perpetually cool underfoot -- your typical kitchen, in many ways, save for the random heavy metal magnets on the fridge.
Starting in late November, though, whoa Nelly. Walk into the kitchen on a crisp afternoon and the smell of baking pie is so vivid and three-dimensional you can practically see the tendrils wafting. And it’s not uncommon for more than one kind of pie to be baking at a time, meaning each whiff is both a potpourri and a puzzle, challenging the nose to pick out its constituent ingredients. Apple and cherry? Blueberry and pecan? Does it matter? Just cut me a slice and toss some cookies ’n cream on there for good measure, please and thank you.
See, it’s about more than just gorging. It’s about a vibe.
I’m big on vibes, especially during the holidays. It’s a tough time of year, with days getting shorter and the air growing colder, and a proper holiday season is an effective bulwark against the blues. It shortens the season; instead of six solid months of darkness and bone-chill, the onslaught of pies and lights and holiday specials and music transform that initial descent into a celebration. Snow is OK when your family’s around and you’re huddled in the living room. Cold is OK when you can walk into a warm home and smell pie cooling on the kitchen counter. After the New Year we buckle down and grit our teeth through the worst of it, a three-month slog to spring. Until then, bring the frost. As long as there’s a slice of something innutritious and totally fattening to look forward to, I’m in.
I’m aware of how lucky I am. The reason I’m able to fetishize something so ultimately trivial as pie is because I’m privileged enough to have a life where that’s possible -- a life that affords me the time and the ability to philosophize about a gooey dessert that can stop someone’s heart. Not everyone has the luxury. If I were a man of means I’d establish some kind of weird pie charity, a program that provides hot slices of it during the major beats of the holiday season. I’d immediately be branded an eccentric and someone who squanders money on pointless endeavors, rather than using it for positive change, like cancer cures or eliminating all evidence of Pauly Shore’s movie career. But I’ve little doubt that the beneficiaries of my pie charity would like it just fine, especially after their third serving of mixed berry. Note to self: Make millions and start spreading pie.
No one really knows who invented it; it just sort of appeared on the scene and stayed there. That’s frustrating. While I’m not the type to get all gushy about the things for which I’m thankful, it’d be nice to thank pie’s visionary inventors -- geniuses all. Though it’s just as well. I’m fine with grabbing them a Dunkin’ Donuts gift card, but they stripped away my authority to give away Congressional Medals of Honor a long time ago.
