delish dish

image via Flickr

In the time we've lived in Richmond, particularly after graduating & hitting a wedding anniversary or so, I've slowly embraced Southern food culture (with certain allowable adaptations). We eat more local food than ever before, hence varying combos of fruit with pastry...

Pie- has a bottom crust topped with a filling. It’s baked in a pie plate, which should have sides that are sloped and are a couple of inches tall. Some pies are topped with a second crust, which is pinched together with the bottom crust to create a seal. Pies can be sweet or savory.

Tart- crust is thicker than a pie. They’re baked in tart pans, which are shallow with ridged or fluted edges. Tart pans have removable bottoms so a baked tart can be removed from the pan and placed on a platter for serving. Tarts never have a second crust & can be sweet or savory.

Cobbler- an American deep-dish fruit dessert or pie with a thick topcrust (usually biscuit crust) & a fruit filling. The fruit is placed in a dish (in the South we use cast iron), then topped with dollops of biscuit dough or batter. 

Crumble/Crisp- like cobblers, crumbles don’t have bottom crusts. Instead of a biscuit topping the fruit is topped with a streusel-like mixture that becomes crumbly when baked. A crumble topping is typically made with a mix of flour, oatmeal, sugar & melted butter.

Buckle- A buckle is an upside down cobbler of sorts. It has a cake-like texture with fruit (usually blueberries) mixed into the batter. As the buckle bakes, the cake rises and the fruit falls to the bottom of the dish, buckling the cake.

Betty or Brown Betty- a fruit, most commonly apples, baked between layers of buttered crumbs. Betties are an English pudding dessert closely related to the French apple charlotte. Betty was a popular baked pudding made during colonial times in America.

Grunt/Slump- result of early attempts to adapt the English steamed pudding to the primitive cooking equipment available to the Colonists in New England, a simple dumpling-like pudding (basically a cobbler) using local fruit. Usually cooked on stove top. In Massachusetts, they were known as a grunt (thought to be a description of the sound the berries make as they stew). In Vermont, Maine, and Rhode Island, the dessert was referred to as a slump.

Galette- a flat, freeform, rustic treat. Dough is rolled out thinly, then topped with a fruit filling. The edges of the dough are folded over the filling and the galette is baked on a baking sheet.

Pandowdy- a deep-dish dessert that can be made with a variety of fruit, commonly with apples sweetened with molasses or brown sugar. The topping is a crumbly type of biscuit except the crust is broken up during baking and pushed down into the fruit to allow the juices to come through. Sometimes the crust is on the bottom and the desert is inverted before serving. The exact origin of the name Pandowdy is unknown, but it is thought to refer to the dessert's plain or dowdy appearance.

Bird's Nest Pudding- pudding containing apples whose cores have been replaced by sugar. The apples are nestled in a bowl created by the crust. Also called Crow's Nest Pudding.

Sonker-  a deep-dish pie or cobbler served in many flavors including strawberry, peach, sweet potato, & cherry. It seems to be a dish unique to North Carolina.  The community of Lowgap at the Edwards-Franklin House, holds an annual Sonker Festival.