“Frozen Essential Lime Pie recipe?” Fern Butters requested. “Child, I am going to get that secret with me to the grave.”
Fern Butters’ frozen crucial lime pie was legend. Just about every time President Harry S Truman went through Islamorada on Higher Matecumbe Vital on his way to the “Minor White Household” in Crucial West, he stopped. Much more particularly, he
stopped at Fern Inn for some of Fern Butters’ frozen important lime pie.
And so did other folks, commoners and dignitaries alike-Papa Hemingway, Cordell Hull, Douglas Fairbanks, Julia Baby . And me.
I failed to see any of all those well-known people. Except Julia Child. And I didn’t know who she was. Ignorance of youth.
But I did consume Mrs. Butters’ frozen important lime pie.
I was not a child when I asked her about the recipe. I had recipes for my grandmother’s compressed fruit cake. And my grandfather’s elderberry wine. And a passel of many others I might gathered from near and far. So I thought her recipe would in good shape appropriate in with my assortment.
Not so. I was a young pastor at her minimal church in Matecumbe. But I could have been Gabriel himself.
And could by no means get that intently guarded top secret.
Many had tried to replicate her recipe, but without achievement. I observed Julia Boy or girl as soon as try out to wheedle the recipe from Fern Butters with no achievements. I read she tied to copy the recipe-once more, no results.
Of study course, that might just be a legend. It truly is believable. Every person who ever ate her frozen essential lime pie coveted the recipe.
Perfectly, Fern is now dead. The Fern Inn has modified names. Fern took the recipe to the grave with her.
But, not long ago her daughter known as me up. She mentioned that soon after all these several years she was going by way of her mother’s letters and points and striving to thoroughly clean out an old dresser drawer packed with old letters and notes.
She arrived across an envelope with my title on it. She wanted to know if I have been the identical preacher that served the very little church down in Matecumbe.
This was a bizarre party. I experienced moved to Wisconsin serving church buildings there for many a long time. When I returned to South Florida, I was a professor in a faculty for 33 years. I retired from the higher education and served a church in North Miami Seaside for 13 years. I retired once again. Then answered a desperation call to provide as chaplain at a retirement community. I just took place to be in the spot where Fern Butters’ daughter could call me.
She despatched me the envelope, now yellow with age. Fern experienced been dead for some 40 or so a long time. I opened the envelope. The note study:
This is what you questioned for. Use it sensibly.
And there was the recipe!
Now I’ve questioned what to do with this recipe. I could, of study course, just publish it. Or I could generate a e book about my days as a youthful pastor amid the Keys Conchs, as the people there known as them selves. I could even provide it [How long would that last!?]
But I’ve determined to give it away. I’m not even going to swear the recipients to secrecy. I’m just likely to give it to folks who have a appreciate for unusual recipes and for historical recipes. I have a buddy from North Carolina, for instance, whose family members has a recipe for pumpkin soup handed down considering that pioneer days.
And then you can find my good friend from Girls Island in Beaufort County South Carolina. She promises her ancestors produced Frogmore Stew.
You will find an aunt in Western Maryland suggests she will give me the recipe for “Puddin’,” a meat product or service that’s out of this planet when utilised on pancakes. I have no thought what the substances are, but I extended to discover out.
People that are intrigued in these forms of recipe and are ready to share their have favorites are invited to subscribe at no charge to COOKIN’ Excellent Publication at http://www.cookin-good.com/.
Not only will subscribers receive a duplicate of Fern Butters’ frozen key lime pie recipe, but will also get a month-to-month problem of the publication at no cost. Everyone is invited to mail their have special recipes.
And invite your friends to subscribe. They are going to love you for telling them about it.
But for those people who are simply curious about the recipe, for people who do not want to pay a visit to the world-wide-web web page, for people who you should not intellect lacking out on all the fantastic features discovered in Cookin’ Very good Gazette, here is the recipe.
With Fern’s mystery ingredient [forgive me, Fern!].
Mrs. Butters’ Magic formula
Key Lime Pie Recipe
Components
1 Cup sweetened condensed milk
6 egg yolks [save whites]
½ Cup key lime juice [genuine key lime]
6 egg whites [I told you to save them!]
1 Tablespoon product of tartar
1 Cup sugar
1 graham cracker pie crust [preferred-regular crust permissible]
½ pint magic formula ingredient
Treatment
Filling
Add yolks to condensed milk and defeat 8 minutes
Incorporate top secret ingredient and defeat right until properly mixed
Include key lime juice and blend nicely
Fold into pie shell
Area in freezer right until very well set. Preserve unused portion in the freezer for up to a week [if it lasts that long!]
Topping
Even though pie sets beat 6 egg whites with product of tartar for 5 minutes.
Insert 1 cup of sugar and whip right up until meringue tends to make peaks when beater is eliminated from mixture.
Increase to prime of pie
Brown in 350◦ oven and amazing in fridge for 15 or additional minutes for a normal pie or in the freezer for an hour if it is frozen important lime pie.
Magic formula component. ½ pint of tender vanilla ice cream.
Will not chortle. The addition of this secret ingredient has stumped numerous a jealous cook and chef, which includes, as I claimed, Julia Kid. Expose it and you choose the mystery out of your have capability to deliver “Harry Truman tested” Frozen Vital Lime pie.
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