More than just a pie, it's also a story
A sweet potato pie is not a complicated dessert, just an open crust filled with a mixture of pureed sweet potatoes, spices, milk, egg and plenty of sugar, baked to a deep, glowing orange color.
But that is a completely inadequate description of a sweet potato pie.
Because this pie also carries a rich weight of memories, of family feeling, of ethnic identity and nostalgia. For southerners, and particularly in Cincinnati, African-Americans, it's a single crust filled with feelings of home and family. People have specific sense memories of their favorite pie, able to gauge to a trace of nutmeg or a spoonful of sugar just how far a pie deviates from the ones baked by their grandmothers and aunts.
This is sweet potato pie's time of year; found on Thanksgiving and Christmas tables, when it's contributed by those grandmothers and aunties, or baked from their recipes
article & recipes continues here
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/entertainment/dining/2015/11/06/more-than-just-pie-s-also-story/75092520/
-------------------
countdown time, but?
It's not too late to tweak & experiment
with your very own version of a classic!
- use one or a light touch of combinations,not more than
2 or 3 (not to go overboard) --
of adding a little bit of mace, or cardamom or adding tiny bit of fresh orange zest, a hint of of crystallized ginger or a few drops of bourbon, or dark rum, or sherry (or the extracts) can help to personalize
(with the basic cinnamon, vanilla & nutmeg of course).
I like to use a mini electric
coffee grinder to ground up whole dried
nutmeg & allspice , fresh when baking .. Most of all?
Have Fun with it !
t.b.