Can I be nostalgic for a moment? Nearly a quarter-century ago, Jay Forstner and I had a panel of experts blind taste local delivery pizza for the Observer. The winner, Anthony’s Gourmet Pizza, is not only still with us, it has a new sit-down restaurant and tea room next to Morgan & York.
A few months ago, I was hosting my book club and buying, for the umpteenth time, a fruit pie, as I do whenever I have to bring or serve a dessert: Zingerman’s, Achatz, or Grand Traverse—bless Michigan’s flourishing artisanal pie industry. Is there really a difference among the three, I wondered—and then realized it was time for another taste test.
If desserts were animals, cakes would be cats and pies would be dogs. Cakes are finicky, formal, not easily transported. They’re passive-aggressive, carrying a mixed message: “It’s a special occasion, so you have to eat some … but I’m so beautiful, don’t be the first to cut into me.” Pies, on the other hand, go anywhere. You can probably sit on one and get away with serving it. Any pie will look at you panting: “Welcome! I’m a homey comfort food. Even if you’re gluten-free, c’mon, just eat the filling.”
Though Forstner’s Fake Ads remain acutely Ann Arborish, he’s lived for many years in Grand Rapids, where he’s a writer and editor. That meant I’d have to shoulder the interviewing/note taking/writing burden alone, and so would be too busy to do any tasting myself. Here’s the group I gathered at the Observer offices one spring evening;
The Tasters
Lee Lawrence (favorite dessert: “I guess it would be something rhubarb and maple”) and M.B. Lewis (“crème brulée with raspberries, and if a little chocolate fell on it, that wouldn’t hurt”) are the Observer restaurant critics, and I won’t say any more about them because they like to work incognito. One of them uses a pseudonym, and both of them wore partial disguises.
Jim Manheim, deputy editor of the Observer, describes himself as a single guy who eats out a lot; he’s also a well-known WCBN radio personality and music critic. His favorite dessert is “good chocolate, just good chocolate.” Tabi Walters (“chocolate pot de crème”) is a graphic designer for the Observer and a talented home baker.
Kim Bayer chairs Slow Food Huron Valley, whose locavore ministries include the annual Pie Lovers Unite! competition. Her favorite dessert is “probably the most recent dessert I had—that would be lemon pudding cake.” From PLU’s executive committee she recruited Janet Osborn (“fruit pie, especially rhubarb”), a retired special ed teacher, and April Pickrel, who also considered coming in disguise: April is a dietitian, yet her favorite dessert is not a fist-sized portion of fresh, seasonal fruit, but chocolate mousse. “Here’s my statement,” she said, as if under indictment. “Desserts like pie can be part of a healthy diet; portion control is important; pies should be made with wholesome ingredients.”
The Pies
Originally I intended to compare Achatz, Grand Traverse, and Zingerman’s, but I had to pull Achatz out of the competition when it suddenly closed its pie store in Traver Village. While Achatz pies are still available in grocery stores, the flavor choices are now too restricted for this project, which required coordinating a gathering of seven people and placing advance orders for twelve pies.
Zingerman’s always has a pecan pie and a multi-berry pie available, so those were two obvious flavors to test. I added their seasonal coconut cream, because it would be available on tasting day. Those flavors, and dozens more, are always available at Grand Traverse Pie Company on Zeeb Rd. with just a few days’ notice. (Even if you don’t think ahead, they keep a good selection of fruit pies, as well as at least one cream pie and caramel-type pie, like pecan, on hand.)
I then rounded up several more contenders in those flavors. Crust Bakery in Fenton is now taking orders for pickup at Argus Farm Stop. I ordered a pecan and an “American Berry” from them.
Crust doesn’t deliver its more fragile cream pies, because they need refrigeration. So I went searching for another coconut cream, and Google led me to a local pie delivery business called Why Not Pie, run by Janice Leach, who said she’d make a coconut cream as well as her “Tripleberry” for me. (I ordered the pies under my own name; none of the bakers knew about the test.) This was especially nice of her, because I ordered the pies before I read her brochure—I shouldn’t have been able to book anything for our Thursday tasting, especially not a coconut cream, because she only bakes on Friday, and coconut cream was not on her schedule that week. By the time I figured that out, she had already agreed to do it. She’s a really good sport, but she’s going to regret that coconut cream for a long time.
I added a couple of wild card pies to break up what I feared might be a wholesome, artisanal monotony. I picked up a Marie Callender’s coconut cream from the freezer case of Kroger, and had a friend, Esther Heitler—not a commercial cook, but a home cook with years of cooking and baking experience for both large and small groups—make me a pecan pie.
Except for those last two, prices ranged from the high teens to the mid-twenties, with Grand Traverse on the lower end and Crust and Zingerman’s on the higher end. After some measuring and weighing, I gave up on trying to say anything else about price except that the more expensive ones seemed a bit bigger.
The Tasting
Two helpers sliced and color-coded the pies in the Observer kitchen, so even I didn’t know which was which. Each taster rated the slices on a five-point scale for crust and a five-point scale for filling, so a perfect pie would be a seventy: ten multiplied by seven tasters.
Tasters talked about the slices as they ate, and also handed in anonymous ballots with their ratings and comments. Both verbal and written comments are excerpted below.
Berry Pies
Score: 57Crust Bakery American Berry (blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, cherry)
Comments: Jim pronounced it “a perfect balance of tart and sweet.” “Juicy fresh berry,” said another. “Lots of fruit, mostly blueberries.” Someone drew a little heart and said “tastes homemade.”
Score: 42
Grand Traverse Lakeshore Berry (strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, Michigan Spy apples)
Comments: “This reminds me of Grand Traverse Lakeshore Berry pie,” said Tabi, who clearly knows her pies. Several people commented that they were picking up rhubarb, though there was none. “Tasty flaky crust,” said one taster; “overall good gooey filling, not much thickener,” said another.
Score: 40
Why Not Pie Tripleberry (raspberry, blueberry, blackberry)
Comments: Tasters commented on the noticeable quantity of cinnamon. Janet liked it—others weren’t sure. Lee wondered what the thickener was—the filling consistency seemed different. Kim noted she could taste the berries, but also “kind of a wallpaper paste taste in the thickener.”
Score: 38
Zingerman’s Jumbleberry (raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, cranberry)
Comments: “Fruity, dark, drier crust”; “lemony, not sweet but gluey”; “thick crumbly crust, not much taste.” Lee, time and again the toughest critic, pronounced it “atrocious.”
Pecan Pies
Score: 63Esther Heitler’s homemade pecan
Comments: When I picked it up, Esther apologized that her pie was slightly scorched; She had misread the oven temperature and timing and baked it at high temperature too long (most pies are started with a blast of high heat and finished at a lower temperature). With the nuts smoking, she pulled it out of the oven a little early.
“I like the presentation. Someone went to an effort,” with the pretty concentric circles of pecans, said April.
“Even though they’re burnt?” someone asked.
“I like them burnt,” said a few people.
“I don’t,” said Lee flatly. “Of all the nuts, pecans don’t take well to burning.” Lee looked at it some more and poked a fork at it suspiciously. “All the other ones are in tight wedges.” It was true—all the other pecan pies could have been carved out of amber, and Esther’s was very gently beginning to seep. Lee continued probing with a fork. “It’s the first time I’ve ever had a pecan pie that’s not set.” Then she took a bite. “When you look at it, you think it’s going to be boozy, but it’s not,” she said. “I’m not a fan of pecan pie—it’s just sugar and nuts—but this, I think, is really fabulous.”
“Hard to describe why it stands out,” M.B. mused. April the dietitian had not until now packed up any of her leftovers. She saved the rest of this one to take with her, but said: “I don’t know if it’s going to make it all the way home.”
Score: 52
Zingerman’s Perky Pecan
Comments: “Very different,” said Jim, “in both taste and texture.” Kim and April also noted the texture was different—the top crust was cracked and bubbly—and a few noted the crust was tasteless. “Good nuts, caramel-y,” “serious creamy serious sweet molasses” someone wrote of the filling. Someone else tasted “bourbon, nice crisp nuts.”
Score: 48
Crust Bakery Pecan
Comments: “Subtle custard, messy looking, lighter more complex filling, lots of nuts, very tasty” someone wrote. Two reviewers called it “rich.” “Equally interesting as [Esther’s], but less body,” said Janet.
Score: 33
Grand Traverse Pecan
Comments: “Just seems sweet,” said April, “pure sugar.” “Not caramelized,” added Tabi. As they had with Grand Traverse’s berry pie, Jim and Kim thought that the crust was outstandingly good. “Gummy”; “good buttery crust”; “pasty filling, not enough nuts,” were some of the anonymous written comments. “Just bad,” frowned Lee.
Coconut Cream
Score: 61.5
Grand Traverse Coconut Cream
Comments: Tabi pronounced it “nice, appetizing, bright!”
On the paper ballots, three people gave it a 9, and one person a 10, pronouncing it “delicious, smooth and fresh.” Lee declared it the only good coconut cream, adding sternly: “The others have serious detriments and should never be served again.”
Score: 35
Zingerman’s Coconut Cream
Comments: “I like the crust,” said Janet. “I like the filling because it’s not super sweet,” said M.B. “That’s because there’s no sugar in there,” shot back Lee. “If it had ham and cheese it might make a good omelet.” (“Also,” delivering the coup de grâce, “it tastes old.”)
Score: 27
Marie Callender
Comments: Now we get to two interesting pies that need special footnotes. I picked up this pie the afternoon of the tasting, and only when we were about to begin did I see that it was supposed to thaw overnight. My helpers placed it carefully in a bowl of warm water, and we saved the coconut cream flight for the end, but all of our tasters still noted the shards of ice in it. It probably wouldn’t have fared well anyway, but this didn’t help things and may have tipped them off that it was an $8.95 commodity pie from the supermarket.
“The crust tastes like greasy toasted bread,” said Lee. Tabi said she tasted Cool Whip. “Something chemical,” agreed others. Only Jim had anything nice to say about Marie’s contribution, noting that the crust was different: “Not like pie crust, but I’m liking it. It’s like a biscuit.”
Score: 18
Why Not Pie Coconut Cream
Comments: Oh dear. There was something wrong with this pie. It was gray, dense, starchy, and overcooked; and unlike other coconut cream pies with their pretty whipped cream flourishes, this one was naked on top, though there was a surprise on the bottom: a dry, crackly layer of toasted coconut. “No!” wrote someone on the paper ballot, and that pretty much summed it up.
—
A few weeks later, coconut cream was Why Not Pie’s pie of the week. I ordered another one, remembering that the first one had not been on Janice Leach’s baking schedule that week. Tabi, Jim, and I tasted this second one in the Observer office. It was an entirely different pie—creamy, but pure and light. We’re not saying it would have won, but it would have been a contender. Leach’s coconut cream pies are a little different. This one, too, arrived naked: if you want whipped cream, you have to add it yourself, but Leach supplies a bag of toasted coconut to go on top.
I asked Leach later asking if she knew what had gone wrong, Her business is small—”just me and an intern, and it hurts that our first mention in the Observer is not a kind one.” She said, with commendable candor, “I could make up something, but it wouldn’t be true.” She did remember she had run out of her regular flour that day and was using pastry flour, but that didn’t seem to explain it.
Listening to the Pie
When the tasting was over and the forms turned in, I unveiled the color codes to our tasters. It was a welcome revelation that of all twelve pies, the favorite was from a friend’s kitchen—especially appreciated by our three representatives (four, really, for Lee is a member too) from Slow Food Huron Valley. Then there was the unexpected brilliance of Grand Traverse’s coconut cream pie, which left all the other cream pie contenders in the dust. But those fruit pies were disappointing. M.B. observed that “when you think of pie, you really think of fruit pie.”
Later that night, my husband, John, entered the numbers into an Excel spreadsheet, and, because it’s a reflex to him, calculated averages and standard deviations. Without even being there, he could see at a glance that it’s hard to beat a homemade pecan pie; that buying a coconut cream pie is a rollicking crapshoot; and that the berry pies with their low standard deviation, were huddled in a tight, mediocre cluster.
Lee thought about it some more, and the next day emailed: “It was funny that none of the berry pies stood out as a clear winner like one did in the other two categories. That might suggest that making a truly standout fruit pie requires absolutely flavorful fruit, an impeccable crust, and the ability to put the two together in a complementary fashion, with an intuitive sense for sweetener, spice and thickener—what this fruit needs today with this crust.” She suggested that that was something that perhaps only a home cook could do.
Next time I host my book club I’ll probably give Crust’s American Berry a try, or even Why Not Pie, since for an extra fiver, Janice Leach delivers. And there may be a development on the pecan pie front: Elizabeth Vlachakis over at Anthony’s Gourmet Pizza told me she’s on the lookout for a good pie to add to her dessert case. I passed the word on to Esther, who laughed—and then looked thoughtful.
