First Butterscotch Pie (1952)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

_Butter Scotch._  Recipe.  Take an ugly Highlander.  This will serve for the "Scotch."  Tell him he's the handsomest man you ever saw.  This will butter him.  And the thing is done.
--HARPER'S WEEKLY, 13 April 1867, pg. 235.

   Whither "butterscotch"?
   This 1867 cite is not too far off from the first one.  I'm still working on the problem.
   From "HOW AMERICA EATS" by Clementine Paddleford, THIS WEEK magazine, NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, 2 March 1952, pg. 28, col. 2:

_THE FIRST BUTTERSCOTCH PIE_
_It was an accident--but_
_turned out so good it's a_
_national habit.  Here's_
_how to make it yourself_

CONNERSVILLE, IND.
THE world's first butterscotch pie was a cream pie gone wrong.  Its birthplace was the kitchen of the Wheeler Creamerie Exchange in the little town of Connersville, Ind., 65 miles from Indianapolis.
   "It happened 50 odd years ago and I know," W. O. Wheeler was saying.  "It was my mother, Sarah Wheeler, who burned the custard that turned into butterscotch."
   I was spending the afternoon with Bill and Goldie Wheeler at their home in Castleton, having driven out to see their orchids.  And it's a sight, all right--in the main greenhouse 6,000 species and hybrids.
   After talking flowers for a full hour, I was invited into the house to have pie and coffee.  It was butterscotch pie and unusually good and I said so.  Then came the story that this pie was the original butterscotch pie, Mother Wheeler's invention.  It was the same pie that helped build the Wheeler restaurant chain, six links in Indianapolis, five other Wheeler places in smaller towns around the state.
   _Customer Stayed Too Long_
SARAH WHEELER ran a bakery in Connersville, specializing in breads, rolls and pies.  Bill and his three older brothers all had to help Mama.  They ran errands, waited on trade, delivered baked goods by bicycle.
   One day, Mr. Wheeler recalls, his mother was making cream pie when a customer came in and stayed overlong.  When Mom got back to her cooking, the cream-pie filling had scorched.  Before Mrs. Wheeler could dump her failure, the boys were at their favorite pastime licking the pan.  They raved about the sticky mess tasting so good and Mother tasted it too.  "Why," she said, "it's exactly like butterscotch candy."
   That scorched custard started Mrs. Wheeler experimenting to get the same taste into a pie.  She never did count how (Col. 3--ed.) many cream fillings were ruined before she has a perfect production.  After that she had plenty of practice.  All Connersville started eating that new kind of pie.  In 1904, when the ladies of the Methodist Church contributed their best recipes to publish a money-raising cookbook (Where is this book?--ed.), Mrs. Wheeler was asked to give the way of the butterscotch.
   "I'll write it out as best I can," she said, "but I can't promise you luck because the rules are in my fingers, my eyes and partly I use my nose.  It must be almost burning, not quite."  Mrs. Wheeler made her butterscotch filling in a skillet.  THIS WEEK's test kitchen finds it is apt to curdle that way.  We do it double-boiler style to make it foolproof.

   _Sarah Wheeler's Butterscotch Pie_
   2 1/2 cups milk
   2 eggs, separated
   1/4 cup flour
   1 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
   1/2 cup water
   1/8 teaspoon salt
   1 1/2 tablespoons butter or margarine
   1 teaspoon vanilla
   1 8-inch baked pastry shell
   Thoroughly combine 1/2 cup milk, egg yolks and flour.  Set aside.  Scald remaining 2 cups of milk over hot water.  Combine brown sugar, water and salt in skillet.  Place over low heat and bring to a gentle boil.  Cook until mixture thickens and a few bubbles break sending up not whiffs, but puffs, of smoke.  Add carmelized sugar very slowly, stirring constantly, over hot water until thick.  Remove and add butter or margarine and vanilla.  When fat has melted, stir it in.  Cool.  Pour filling into cooled pie shell.
   Make a meringue using the egg whites, 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar and 1/4 cup of sugar.  Spread over pie.  Bake in hot oven (400 degrees F.) 8 to 10 minutes or until delicately browned.  Yield: 6 portions.