In Lieu of Citrus, Make Vinegar Pie

To me, Thanksgiving pies are overall lacking in acid; they’re sweet, creamy, nutty, crunchy, but oh so saccharine. That said, even as a kid, I preferred tart lemon meringue pies to traditional birthday cakes. (You can only assume how popular I was.) But this year, I’m planning to make a late 1800s Southern dessert that uses vinegar in lieu of citrus.

If you’re a Little House on the Prairie fan, you might remember author Laura Ingalls Wilder’s detailing of a Christmas vinegar pie (recipe reprised here) in the 1932 book, Little House in the Big Woods. Alongside humble ingredients, like sugar, flour, eggs, butter and warming spices, vinegar became a viable stand-in for citrus, which surely wouldn’t have been accessible to farmers in late 1800s Minnesota.

Rachel Wharton, author of American Food: A Not-So-Serious History, calls vinegar pie, “part of a broad range of scarcity pies made with lots of sugar and something acidic,” but she really thinks it became a thing of convenience too, “cause you always have it [vinegar] on hand.” Even Martha Stewart, doyenne of domestic arts and iconic homemaker, said her mother used to make it in the olden days — a tradition she carries on today.

While writing ACID TRIP, I spoke with Houston-based Chef Chris Shepherd, who made and used a lot of vinegar in Underbelly’s unique perspective of what makes up contemporary Creole cuisines — contrasting fat, flavor and spice in Southern barbecue meets Vietnamese cooking. Shepherd told me that he first came across vinegar pie in a 1960s pamphlet called Hillbilly Cooking Moutaineer Style. “This Depression-era recipe used vinegar instead of citrus to create a custard base, similar to that of chess pie, a Southern specialty,” said Shepard, who asked his pastry chef to give it a shot. Although Underbelly closed in late 2020, vinegar pie was on the menu until the end.

I remembered that Husk in Nashville, Tennessee had run a vinegar pie a while back, and when I reached out to pastry chef Rachel Rathgeb, I was told she reprises it seasonally. In Rathgeb’s past experience, lemon had often been the answer to the question of acidity in desserts, but it’s not the only answer. “I don't always want the fruity lemon flavor when adding that balancing sour note — different types of vinegar allow for something more complex and fun.” Rathgeb chose apple cider for this application, positing that its, “slightly sweet and distinctly fruity” flavor profile would part nicely with the preconception of pie. For lighter fruits, she may use a white wine vinegar, and darker one, a red wine vinegar.

Not only does vinegar change the flavor, but it can help extract and impart other colors; the aforementioned vinegar pie is imbued with hibiscus and rose for a pastel pink sheen. When Rathgeb upped the amount of sugar she’d normally use in a custard-based pie the result was incredibly creamy, smooth and delicious. “It definitely has a strong sour flavor,” says Rathgeb, which could be seen as more divisive than one would expect from a standard pie. But when life doesn’t hand you lemons for Thanksgiving, what can you do? Make vinegar pie.