Food is a part of history. What people ate and cooked during a time period are tied with the events of that time. Think about how people ate during the Great Depression and how that impacted the rest of their lives. You may know or knew someone who grew up during that time and observed (or heard) how not wasting food was so important to them. They were the founders of the “clean plate club.”
Peaches are a part of Georgia history and preserving vegetables and fruits, including peaches, was essential during the Depression.
Back in 2022, I wrote about Georgia peach season and my quest for delicious peaches. This year I may have gotten a little carried away with my peach purchases and now find myself freezing some for later. That’s not a bad thing, of course. It will be a treat to still have peaches after the season has passed.
I was thinking about a recipe my great aunt shared with my mom and I several years ago. She said one of the things people did when she grew up (during the Great Depression) was preserve peaches by drying them. Then, a delicious pie could be made later by reconstituting the peaches with sugar and water. She called it 3-story pie, because there was a layer of peaches, custard, and meringue.
The August 13, 1962 Atlanta Constitution featured a story about dried peaches, “Home Dried Fruit Wakes Memory.” You need some dry, sunny weather to dry peaches. Apparently peaches don’t handle a rain shower well. The instructions read, “To dry peaches, you simply wash the peaches, cut in about 1/8 inch slices, lay on a piece of tin and place in the hot sun. Bring in at night and put in a cool, dry place and return to sun the next day. The peaches should be dry. If not, place in a very low oven and stir occasionally until completely dry.”
The dried fruit could be stewed with water and sugar later to make a fruit spread to use like preserves, to scoop into a pastry circle and form a fruit pie that can be held, or creating a pie like my great aunt.
The women of the Locust Grove Home Demonstration Club featured in the 1962 Atlanta Constitution article, gathered at the home of Mrs. Marion T. Willard. She provided the instructions on drying fruit. Grace Hartley, author of the article, provided instructions for a pie that sounds a lot like my great aunt’s pie.
“One of the best desserts I can remember as a child was made with dried peaches. Mama used a rich biscuit dough to line a good sized baking pan. Over the bottom she spread a thick payer of stewed, sweetened, dried peaches and over this poured a rich egg custard mix, reserving the whites for meringue. The custard was baked at about 375 degrees until well set and the pastry browned. Remove from the oven and top with meringue. Return to oven to brown. This was also a popular dessert to go to all day singings and other church dinners that were spread under the shade of huge oak trees. Anyone else remember?”
I’m sure many remember these dinners often called “dinner on the ground.” I went to a few at my grandparents church.