Cantaloupe Pie Recipe

Ingredients

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• thx to Courtney Bond and Texas Monthly Magazine shopping list
• Cantaloupe Pie shopping list
• It’s said that all you have to do is take one whiff of a Pecos cantaloupe to know it’s the real deal. That seductive smell equals summer in certain parts of Texas, inspiring folks to hop in their cars and make a beeline for roadside stands heaped high with the homely orbs, their sturdy countenance belying the creamy, coral-hued sweetness inside. No doubt you’ve indulged in wedges sprinkled with a little salt or hollowed-out halves filled with vanilla ice cream, but who among you has had a slice of cantaloupe pie? As anachronistic as the elegant railroad dining car for which it was created, it’s an uncommon confection attributed to Edward Pierce, a College Station native and 42-year employee of the Texas and Pacific Railway. (It was the T&P, in fact, that introduced the country to the Pecos cantaloupe roughly a century ago when its dining service contracted to buy the fruit from M. L. Todd, a local farmer whose little patch of alkaline soil in arid West Texas was producing some mighty fine specimens.) A resourceful sort, Pierce couldn’t tolerate the wasteful disposal of overripe cantaloupes and came up with a dessert that quickly became a menu favorite. In 1992, after Pierce had retired, Fort Worth Star-Telegram writer Anita Baker found him living in the city and happily on board with sharing his recipe. shopping list
• 1 fully ripe cantaloupe (preferably Pecos, of course) shopping list
• 3 tablespoons flour shopping list
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg shopping list
• 1 stick butter shopping list
• 5 egg yolks, beaten shopping list
• 1/2 cup sugar shopping list
• 1 9-inch baked pie shell shopping list
• 5 egg whites shopping list
• 1/8 teaspoon vanilla shopping list
• sugar, to taste shopping list