Meaning in the Meat Pie

Sometimes pie is more than just crust and filling.

Someone close to me, as close as any family member, is having a serious mental health crisis. She’s had a tough few years — many of us have — but hers witnessed the deaths of her grandfather and then cancer took her father during her first year of college. Only two months later came a world-wide pandemic and the frenetic government response.

While I’m no therapist, I wonder if the lockdowns, the global panic, and the ongoing drumbeat of potential mass extinction short-circuited her grieving process, affecting an already-fragile mind struggling with her emergence into a world full of uncertainties. 

I learned the heartbreaking details of her recent unravelling through discussions with her mother, also a dear friend. Sadly, other than lending a sympathetic ear, I could offer little in the way of advice.

But a small part of this story hit home. As the holidays approached, her daughter reached out to several members in her extended family, all-but-pleading with them to send her a text or an email with little more than a simple “Hello. How are things going?” 

In response, she received the standard replies. 

“We’ll be up for Thanksgiving! See you then!”

“Good to hear from you. Let’s catch up soon!”

I don’t think her family is all that unusual. We move away for better employment opportunities or a better climate, usually returning for big family events and celebrations — holidays, weddings, funerals, etc. It is as it should be. We then rely upon the internet to maintain those connections, but we lose so much in those digital pipes.

When the daughter sent out a plea via text to reach out to her relatives, she meant as part of everyone’s everyday life. They didn’t get it. She didn’t want to “catch up.” Simple notes, comments, bits of news from her ever-dispersing family would suffice.

When I heard this story, I felt that same ache. 

It’s Later Than You Think

Last May, the “Honestly” podcast with Bari Weiss featured writer Tim Urban, who discussed his proposal for a self-help book for the country. Later in the program, Bari asked him to talk more about another favorite topic of his — procrastination. To illustrate one of his points, he offered a sobering calculus applied to the nature of life-long friendships. 

Urban pointed out that before we fully grasp the finite nature of our lives, we do not consider the countdowns we unknowingly establish in the realm of our personal relationships. We have a friend from our past that, because we now live in different cities, we see maybe every two years. We have a great time, then we go back to our regular lives, and two years later, we do it again. 

“Well just say you’re 30 and maybe if you’re lucky, both of you live into your 80s,” Urban calculates. “I’m seeing them [only] 25 more times, ever. It’s crazy.” And sobering. Anyone can readily visualize twenty-five of something. Personally, this gives me only ten more gatherings — if I’m lucky. 

I have those friends. We met in college, and over the years, our meetups have declined in frequency to an annual weekend at the oceanfront vacation home of one of those buddies. It’s a lavish experience as our host has done very well for himself, but it takes place at a location difficult to reach for some.

For my wife and I, the logistics to attend a simple weekend with friends requires planning, juggling of work commitments, and some expense. We’ve obviously come a long way from the casual dormitory drop-ins that created this brotherhood in the first place. Our origin stories involve typical college hi-jinx and post-college parties that, as one expects it to, tapered off as careers, wives and children entered the picture. We grew up, but we also grew apart.

Clove is in the Air

Many of us are well acquainted with the connection between scent and memory. The most mundane odors transport us back to events both pleasant and wincing. For me, the aroma of cloves simmering in a pot of ground pork and beef filling for meat pie instantly transport me back to my mother’s kitchen on Christmas Eve.

As the years pass, and as I too lament the dispersal of my extended family, meat pie, or tourtière represents more than just a holiday meal to me. Baking the pie generates a distinctive aroma, due to the use of cloves in the meat filling. During the afternoon it takes to make, the smell permeates the entire house. It not only means the arrival of Christmas, it heralds the best part of the holiday — the informal gathering of friends and family to share in a savory homage to my heritage.

Mom grew up in a small town with a tight-knit French-Canadian community where every family had their own meat pie recipe, usually committed to the mother’s memory. Made with either ground pork or ground pork-and-beef filling, the Quebecois and the early-generation diaspora traditionally served the meat pie after midnight Mass. We never did that, thankfully. Instead, we served the pie for Christmas Eve dinner.

Then in my early teens, when my sisters still lived at home, my mother staged an impromptu Christmas Eve open house that drew a small parade of family, friends, and neighbors into our tiny house for pie and drinks. The house never again felt quite so imbued with the spirit of the holiday nor so joyous. If asked to mark the delineation between my childhood and the rest of my life, I might point to that Christmas Eve. 

Every later attempt to duplicate that night always fell flat. The meat pie was the same as it ever was, but the evenings gathered a dwindling number of revelers. The older generation stopped going out. Some neighbors moved away. The kids grew up. But mostly, the culture no longer bound us together. 

Today, my wife serves us the traditional French-Canadian meat pie at Christmas Eve from my mother’s recipe. The fact that she’s not French-Canadian and continues this tradition for me is one of many reasons why I love her. 

While we don’t press the matter, I do wonder when or if my daughter will ever ask for the recipe, which I committed to paper and pixel years ago. She doesn’t know it yet, but sometimes a pie, served warm with a good story behind it becomes more than just a pie. In a time when such connections grow ever more tenuous, it tethers me to a life of meaning. 

I wish for my friend’s daughter that she also find her own tether to draw in her family. When I consider how our digital society makes us more connected and yet more isolated, I wonder if that poor girl is just a canary in the coal mine.

Make Your Own Meat Pie

You don’t have to be French-Canadian to enjoy tourtière, of course, but if you are and haven’t experienced one, here’s your chance.

As mentioned above, my mother, like her mother, and grandmother before that, filed this recipe in their heads. In 1990, when I began publishing Roadside, I seized the opportunity to finally commit this recipe to print. Later on, my wife and sister finally tested and refined that recipe, so I can almost guarantee that you too can channel your inner Quebecois.

We serve it with bread and butter pickles and cole slaw, a combo that probably reflected family preference rather than any adherence to French-Canadian culinary doctrine. My mother would say that she just liked the pickles, and so we had pickles with the pie. 

Bon apetit!

Ingredients

Pie

1 1/2 lbs ground pork

1 1/2 lbs ground beef

1 medium onion, chopped

2 tsp ground cloves (add more to taste)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1-2 tbsp salt and black pepper, to taste

1 clove garlic, chopped (optional)

2 9-inch unbaked double crust pie shells

Gravy

1/2 of broth from simmered meat

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 tbsp cornstarch

More cloves if needed

Instructions

1. Put first seven ingredients in large pot and cover with water. Stir to mix. Turn heat to high. When water starts to boil, turn heat to medium. After about 1/2 hour, turn heat to low. Stir often.

2. Simmer 2-3 hours until mixture has the consistency of gelatin. Put pot in refrigerator until fat becomes firm on top. Remove fat with large spoon.

3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

4. Reheat meat mixture until it is warmed through and liquefied. Using a slotted spoon, drain mixture and fill pie curst, using a bit of liquid to keep pie moist. Place top of crust over mixture; make slits in crust.

5. Bake 15 minutes; then lower heat to 375 degrees and bake about 25 minutes more or until crust turns golden brown. Remove from oven, let cool slightly, and serve warm (with your favorite beef gravy if you wish). Pie will keep in refrigerator for up to a week and can be made weeks ahead and frozen.

Makes two pies.