A Canadian Pie That Isn’t Pie, but Is Comforting
Story by Vanessa Chiasson
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A Canadian Pie That Isn’t Pie, but Is Comforting
By Vanessa Chiasson
If you’re getting married in southern Nova Scotia, your wedding registry likely has a few unusual items in addition to fluffy towels and pretty plates. People in this part of the world know that adult life isn’t complete without your very own tools to make rappie pie.
Rappie pie (traditionally called “râpure” or “pâté à la râpure” among Francophones) is a dish whose roots run as deep as the local Acadian culture. This hot, hearty casserole of slow-cooked meat and potatoes is pure comfort food for southern Nova Scotians in Clare, Yarmouth, Pubnico, and Wedgeport. As such, anyone getting married can expect to receive sturdy rappie pie baking dishes, large graters, and maybe some packages of cheesecloth.
Though the word “pie” is used, there’s no pastry involved. The main ingredient is potatoes. They are grated, squeezed and strained with cheesecloth, then rehydrated with the homemade broth. The broth itself comes from gently simmering your protein of choice along with onions, salt, and pepper. Chicken is the most popular but other variations, which include clams, pork, rabbit, duck, geese, venison, and even porcupine, aren’t always to mainstream taste.
The resulting mix of poached meat and potato paste is a curious texture which fans describe as pure comfort food but, for the uninitiated, can most kindly be described as gelatinous. Once assembled, rappie pie is topped with dots of butter or tiny cubes of pork fat. It cooks for two to three hours until the top is golden brown. It’s commonly served with a dollop of butter, a drizzle of molasses, and sometimes a side of chow-chow, a local chutney of green tomatoes and onions. For those who haven’t grown up with rappie pie, the taste and texture take some getting used to. It’s weird, wonderful, and – for Acadians – rappie pie is at the very heart of their identity.
Traditionally, a rappie pie required 20 pounds of potatoes and a day’s worth of effort among community members. Now, convenience bricks of prepared potato pulp are available and D’Eon’s Bakery in West Pubnico does a brisk business in pre-made pies. But no matter how it’s made, everyone agrees that rappie pie is an essential dish at Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving. When a family member moves out west for work or a new grad returns home, it's on the menu. You’ll always find rappie pie gently bubbling in the oven on cold winter Sundays and it’s all but guaranteed to be served at any wedding rehearsal dinner.
Click here for more on Acadian food culture.
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Here’s my question about this airplane food article: how come I’ve never seen the interesting-sounding dishes in the air?
I can’t do it. I can’t do cottage cheese. I’ve never even tried it. Anyone else have this problem?
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Airplane food! Boy do I have thoughts and opinions on this. So, the best way to get an interesting dish on a flight is to select a dietary choice between 30 days and 3 days before your international flight (as you rarely get a meal on a domestic flight unless you are first class) There is a very large list for various dietary concerns and food communities, for instance you can select “vegan”, “vegetarian”, or “Hindu vegetarian”. I’m quite partial to Hindu vegetarian, especially if my flight is departing from London (it’s not great departing out of certain markets). I have friends that swear by the kosher meal and always select that even though they don’t eat kosher on the ground. Keep in mind, it is a roll of the dice, the specialty meal might be amazing and far better than the standard selection, but it could also be crappy, and you can’t switch as your seat is now assigned with that dietary restriction for all meals and snacks served. For the most part I have had positive experiences and if you want to experience fun alternative options in the air, I recommend it. You may just want to make sure you have a back up snack in your bag, just in case.
I love, love, love cottage cheese! Always have. As a kid, when we’d go out to restaurants that had salad bars, that’s all I would load up on. I love it with peaches or chopped up tomatoes and pepper. I’m going to have to try hot honey and peaches. Yum!