MA'S VINEGAR PIE

Lucy Dickson

I can just hear my dad chortling away as he read recipes from his mother's recipe box. (His mother was the "Ina" who often serves as a focus for this blog when we aren't having real-life adventures.)

Lucy Ream Dickson

Yesterday, as I searched for another gingerbread recipe, I came across this one for "Ma's Vinegar Pie" in Grandma Ina's recipe box. I wondered if people really made vinegar pie, so I asked my computer and it supplied many recipes and some information. From "Heritage Recipes" I learned that this was a pie that pioneers made in the winter when the dried fruits had been depleted. Made with apple cider vinegar, apparently it's much like apple pie.

Ma's Vinegar Pie (from the Dobson collection)
1/2 cup of vinegar
1/2 cup hot water
1 scant cup molasses or sugar

Butter 1/2 the size of an egg

1 heaping tablespoon of bread or cracker crumbs

1/4 of a nutmeg or flavoring to suit the taste 

Lafe & Lucy Dickson

And there you have it. Evidently Ina copied this recipe from one in her Pa's handwriting at Drain, Oregon, on April 12, 1914.

However, before you run to the kitchen to try to this recipe, you may want to heed Ina's note on the outside of this scrap of paper:
"Ma's vinegar pie -- all wrong -- use at least one cup crumbs."

Well, if Ina says it's all wrong, I'm just not going to try it. The wonder is that she didn't just toss it, but if she had, then I would never know a thing about vinegar pie. I really think it needs an egg, if you have one to spare. Other recipes use much less vinegar.

So, recipes abound online for vinegar pie, and if you're interested (I admit that I'm a little interested), I recommend trying one of those rather than this one. KW

[Lucy Dickson is the "Ma" to whom this recipe is attributed. She was Ina's mother and hence my great-grandmother.]