LUMBERTON — Pie is one of America’s favorite desserts, and peanut pie is Lumberton’s important contribution to this tradition.
This is no ordinary pie because it’s our pie. Furthermore, it tastes great and is easy to make.
Over the past 50 years, this unique recipe has been nearly forgotten. Its biggest promoter, Janie Blanchard (later Tomaselli), owner of Blanchard’s Restaurant, generously gave away peanut pie recipe cards with slices of her signature dessert.
The restaurant is long gone, but the legend of this special pie is back thanks to an Our State magazine cover story on North Carolina pies. Our State proclaimed it one of the state’s legendary pies.
It may sound audacious to claim that this pie was invented in Lumberton, but the provenance is solid. The recipe has popped up elsewhere, but Ms. Janie gave away so many cards at her restaurant on U.S. 301, then the north/south pipeline along the East Coast, that the pie had legs.
This culinary detective story leads to Folly Farm, where retired North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service Home Economics agent Susan Noble lives with her mother, Jean Bullard Noble, five chickens and a couple of cats and dogs.
Susan Noble, who grew up in Lumberton, first heard of the pie when she was stationed in New Bern. There, she learned of the Lumberton connection.
“Blanchard’s Restaurant was famous. People from everywhere stopped there, and the recipe traveled with them,” Noble said. “I came home to learn about it.”
To Noble’s surprise, she did not have far to look. The pie has its roots with her grandmother, Lyda Bullard Crawford.
“Mother was a great cook,” Jean Noble said. “Even when she had help, she did the cooking.”
Ms. Lyda served a pecan pie at bridge club, to which Janie Blanchard also belonged. The pie was the same recipe as peanut pie, only with pecans.
“Janie liked it so well that she asked mother for the recipe,” Jean Noble said.
At some point, peanuts were substituted for pecans, possibly because peanuts are cheaper, and Ms. Janie was a shrewd businesswoman, Noble speculates. With peanuts, the taste was as unique as the recipe.
The ingredients are few: 3/4 cup of chopped peanuts, 20 Ritz crackers and 1/2 cup of sugar folded into the whites of three eggs, beaten with 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar, 1/2 cup sugar and one teaspoon of vanilla until stiff. Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees, refrigerate, and the pie is ready to serve with a topping of whipped cream.
“It couldn’t be any easier to make. It’s the easiest pie I can think of,” Susan Noble said. “It’s basically a meringue with peanuts.”
In the kitchen at Folly Farm, Susan prepared a pie from start to finish in 15 minutes. For cooks with less experience than a career Extension agent, it may take a few minutes longer.
A couple of tips for trying this recipe at home include a mixer with a whisk attachment. Susan also advises the use of a figure-eight motion while carefully folding the dry with the wet ingredients.
For those who dined at Blanchard’s or at Ms. Janie’s later restaurant, the City Club at 19th and Pine streets, the taste is a delightful trip down memory lane.
Please remember, this is not a peanut butter pie, so just give the peanuts a rough chop. An internet search for peanut pie provides a multitude of peanut butter pie recipes and only one for Blanchard’s peanut pie.
Both Susan and Jean gave the pie two thumbs up for taste. For a pie with so few ingredients, the taste exceeds the sum of the parts.
As we celebrate Southern cooking — America’s singular native cuisine — add peanut pie to the catalog of legendary recipes. It’s a great pie, easy to make and invented right here.
