Feminism in Three Pies

It’s Thanksgiving. Which, for me and 1000s of midwestern women, that means pie. In this house specifically that’s chocolate pie for J. Pumpkin Pie for me. And maybe blueberry pie for the kids – the youngest is on quite the blueberry kick this month. 

To be honest, I don’t particularly even like pie. I never really have. As a kid I used to trade my pie crusts (the leftover pie dough brushed with butter and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and then baked) for the chemically sweetened Little Debbies that were stored in the cabinet. Even now, I’ll eat pie filling without touching the crust – no matter how flaky or buttery its creator promises.

But Thanksgiving means pie. Perhaps it’s the versatility of the dish – sweet or savory. Graham cracker or flaky traditional dough. Lattice, double crust, or open-faced. Baked or no-bake. Light and airy, or dense and rich. There is diversity in pie, and more impressive than that – there is feminism in pie. 

Pie #1: A Homemade Pie. 

This is the only pie my mother knows. The family gatherings of my childhood had routines, throughlines that connected generations of women – a talk of breasts, iced white wine, and pie. Who make their own crust from scratch, who picked up a frozen crust from town. Pies marked the seasons. Late summer gatherings meant peach pies. Thanksgiving was the traditional pumpkin or sweet potato pie. My brother’s birthday means chocolate silk pie, with the meringue topping with broken tips from where each of us would break off the golden toasted topping. And it seemed like we had rhubarb pie year around. We had the world’s toughest rhubarb plant. No matter how many times one of us kids accidentally (or “accidentally’) mowed it over. No matter that it was single plant nestled between a bush and a concrete platform, absent of any nurturing or care. Each year it yielded the hardy bitter red fruit that my father loved.

I may not love eating pie, but I love making pie. I love sprinkling the flour on the counter, remembering how my mother would let my little hands spread far too much on our worn table. The melody of shaping the dough into a ball, kneading it just enough, to a point that you can’t write on a recipe card but can only learn through the years, through the hands of others, that I learned through the wisdom of my mother. Just enough. Rolling it out requiring that same balance of strength, speed, and softness. Roll it too hard one way and you’ll end up with an oblong crust. Too slowly or softly and you’ll stick.

That’s the power of the feminine – the ability to know without words, the ability to read the dough and respond, working with it, to shape it rather than relying on force. To create something so strong as a pie crust, layered with only a few ingredients to hold whatever filling. That’s feminine – strength and diversity. Strength in diversity, tied together through generations.

I love this pie.

Pie #2: A Purchased Pie

This was the pie of last year. With a four-month old, a toddler, and a tween we packed up the car and headed south to J’s parents. J comes from a family that wants to be together, with sibilings who genuinely enjoy their time, who have a friendship beyond what is expected of biology. It’s what I wish for my own children. I was off work early, having just returned from maternity leave, but we were still looking at an evening arrival. I had volunteered to bring the pies, and had loosely thought about making a family recipe. 

But it was a busy week of a busy month of a busy life. Still carrying the milk and the muddled brain of a new mother, trying to remember the intricate legalities and processes of my new career I opted out of pie making and ordered four frozen pies from Wegmans, passing the “take and bake one” to J’s brother to heat and bring the next day. 

That’s the power of feminism – to know that women are not relegated to our traditional roles. To decide where our time is better spent – in a kitchen, or board room, courtroom, or bar room, or snuggling toddlers to sleep. Our purchased pies taste like free time. They taste like choice.

Pie #3: A Hybrid

Now as I look towards Thanksgiving this year, I look towards another long road trip, moving back to Beaufort, SC. This one with those same, but now louder, two young sons, well into my third trimester and coming off three back-to-back night shifts. This year our teenager has asked to bake and I look forward to starting maternity leave watching her hands guide my son’s small hands on the smooth wooden handles of the rolling pin. I look forward to my youngest son giggling in far too much flour. I look forward to spraying his carefully selected holiday outfit with stain remover, pre-purchased and designed for fruit stains. Also purchased? A pre-baked graham cracker crust and “no bake” 5 minute chocolate jello mix.

Because this year we’re doing a hybrid pie. 

And that’s the feminism I’m most thankful for, the ability to pick and choose, knowing that feminism is not defined by our choice of pie, but rather by our ability to choose. By the equal and inherent value in those choices. By the freedom to make it work for us. To be able to do one thing, then another, to do it all or nothing at all. To slow down or speed up in accordance with our needs and desires.

I’ve heard that happiness is being able to choose your problems. This Thanksgiving week, happiness is being able to choose my pie. Gratitude is for the women and men who worked to give me that choice and who work tirelessly every day to expand my choices. 

And that’s goes for much more than pie.