This is the first of a series of quarterly columns on New England’s culinary tradition that we’ll be writing for All Things New England. It’s a tradition that we think is more varied and interesting than most people realize. In each column, we’ll talk about a recipe appropriate to the season drawn from a New England cookbook that’s at least a hundred years old and in many cases, even older.

This English proclivity for pies, along with English fruits such as the apple, made it safely across the Atlantic and took deep root in New England. Mark Twain’s friend Charles Dudley Warner, writing in 1872, found that “all the hill and country towns of New England [were] full of . . . women . . . who would feel ready to sink in mortification through their scoured kitchen floors, if visitors should catch them without a pie in the house. The absence of pie would be more noticed than a scarcity of Bible even.”

New Englanders have produced what Harriet Beecher Stowe called "an untold variety of genera and species" of pie. But for many people in the region pie means apple pie. In the "Fruit Pies" section of Northern Hospitality we pay tribute to this regional delight with a hoard of recipes from both Old and New England, including a 1615 pippin tart in a puff paste, an eighteenth-century golden runnet pudding in a rich crust, and an assortment of recipes calling for dried or fresh apples, enhanced with cinnamon, nutmeg, rosewater, or lemon. We even offer a "Codling Pye" of unripe apples that are turned greener still by stewing them with vine leaves in a brass pan. The combination, as we warn, produces a toxic verdigris!

But even for New Englanders there comes a time to put aside our passion for apple pie—for a few months at least. In summer we turn our pie-making hand to the more ephemeral warm-weather fruits and berries for which the region is also justly famous.

For us, Lydia Maria Child's 1829 "Cherry Pie" is the perfect start to summer pie-making. It's lightly sweetened and gently spiced, highlighting the natural flavor of the cherries. It's also easy to make, with just a few simple ingredients encased in a light and crumbly modified puff paste crust. In short, this pie is fresh and modest, but with a hint of opulence. In a moment, we'll give you the directions for making it, along with a few tips for translating Child's nineteenth-century instructions for use in a modern kitchen. But first, a brief word about Child herself.

For much of her life, which spanned the nineteenth century, Child's own financial survival and that of her family was, of necessity, among her chief concerns. But as an activist and intellectual, she also worried about the pinched circumstances in which many Americans of her day found themselves. Along with great material advances, the early Industrial Revolution brought with it some devastating periods of economic recession. Broadly speaking, Child's response to these hard times was an impulse to austerity, mixed with a desire to teach American women about self-sufficiency, an ideal she considered a cornerstone of New England identity. Her cookbook and domestic guide,The American Frugal Housewife, showcases her canniness at reining in household expenditures, along with a measured sense of good living. She dedicates her book "to Those Who Are Not Ashamed of Economy." By emphasizing frugality as a moral principle, she helped those who were ashamed to feel less so. The book quickly became a national best seller.

Child was also an abolitionist, novelist, and editor of an early children's magazine. You may know her Thanksgiving song, "Over the River, and through the Wood." She was raised in Medford, Massachusetts, and spent her later years in Newton and Wayland. So, odd as it may seem, the nineteenth century had its own renowned Boston-area cookbook writer named Child.

from The American Frugal Housewife

To make pie crust for common use, a quarter of a pound of butter is enough for a half a pound of flour. Take out about a quarter part of the flour you intend to use, and lay it aside. Into the remainder of the flour rub butter thoroughly with your hands, until it is so short that a handful of it, clasped tight, will remain in a ball, without any tendency to fall in pieces. Then wet it with cold water, roll it out on a board, rub over the surface with flour, stick little lumps of butter all over it, sprinkle some flour over the butter, and roll the dough all up; flour the paste, and flour the rolling-pin; roll it lightly and quickly; flour it again; stick in bits of butter; do it up; flour the rolling-pin, and roll it quickly and lightly; and so on, till you have used up your butter. Always roll from you. Pie crust should be made as cold as possible, and set in a cool place; but be careful it does not freeze. Do not use more flour than you can help in sprinkling and rolling. The paste should not be rolled out more than three times; if rolled too much, it will not be flaky.

Tips for making it: The amount of flour and butter specified in Child's recipe is enough to make only one crust. For our two-crust pie, we doubled the recipe.

from The American Frugal Housewife

Cherry pies should be baked in a deep plate. Take the cherries from the stalks, lay them in a plate, and sprinkle a little sugar and cinnamon, according to the sweetness of the cherries. Baked with a top and bottom crust, three quarters of an hour.

Tips for making it: Child doesn't say anything about pitting the cherries. Following the advice of other writers of the time, we pitted ours. We used two pounds of fresh Bing cherries for one pie, with two teaspoons of demerara sugar and ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon mixed in. We placed the cherries in the unbaked crust, then topped with another crust, pinching the edges together with a fork.

We baked our pie in an electric convection oven at 425º for 20 minutes, then at 350º for 30 minutes, until the top crust was nicely browned. If your top crust isn't brown after the final 30 minutes at 350º, increase the oven temperature to 375º and bake for another 5-10 minutes, or until browned. Cool the baked pie for 15 minutes on a wire rack. Then dig in!