Gramma Kath’s Saskatoon Pie

 

​  When I asked if I could interview my Mom about what food she felt most symbolized her connection to Alberta, her only question was, “when are you coming?” She is and has been a woman who can unwaveringly get behind whatever I or anyone else is doing, limited questions asked.

You want to paint your room pink? Looks like bubblegum pink is the most obnoxious, let me find the rollers. You’re moving to Australia at eighteen? Here’s a backpack & some Canada flag boxer shorts. You want to wear a black and white leopard skin tuxedo to your graduation to match your bleached hair and black sideburns that accent your bull ring? Great, I’ll make the tux and show up to your grad with spiked hair and a fake bull ring! 

Standing in the kitchen today, she’s wearing a shirt made from a globe print in recognition of my travels. Sometimes her efforts make the front page of the paper, sometimes they’re subtle, but she’s always supporting something. 

    Kathy Campbell has been many things in life: a prize-winning mini pony driver, hometown theatre actress, soprano in a women’s choir, Mother of four, grandparent of six, and Great-Grandma to a growing number of babies. If I had to credit my Mother for two impressions she made on my life, the first would be her ability to turn anything in the fridge, or nothing at all, into something. We could be down to our last can of mushroom soup and some scant leftovers, yet somehow, on the dinner table an hour later was this five-layer casserole comprised of the last cup of frozen hashbrowns, salsa that had been hiding behind a jar of mayo, some green beans from Sunday brunch, a bit of chicken that had been wrapped in foil, and this warm layer of thick Campbell's mushroom soup. Then, out of the toaster, a slice of freshly baked bread, and dinner was served. Hot and delicious! 
Life was a MasterChef Black Box challenge.

Second would be her lack of concern for what others think. As school kids, I recall on more than several occasions when my sister and I both wanted a ride to school when it was too cold to walk the twenty minutes. Though we feared the judgment of being seen arriving in a twenty-year-old faded red hatchback with our Mother at the wheel. Naturally, we didn’t want to be dropped off anywhere close to the school entrance! To help us deal with our precious pre-teen reputations, she would instead drive us right to the front door where all the kids would see us, curlers in hair, occasionally with a housecoat on, and usher us out onto the sidewalk, rolling down the window and yelling out how much she loved us with a little honk and a wave as she pulled away. It was here that I began, reluctantly, to develop a lack of concern for what other people thought. However, it did feel like great suffering in the moment. 

Born in High River, Alberta, in the 50’s, the family lived in Longview and eventually migrated to Innisfail in 1958. Here, at their final stop, my grandpa was working on building the family a new home by night and drove truck in the oil sector during the day. During the transition, my Mom and her three older sisters spent their first few months living out of a family friend's grain bin. To downplay the rusticness of it all, my Mom points out that it wasn’t one of those big Westeel grain bins you see now, but more of a small building where a farmer would store grain on the property. Maybe I would have had to see it to get the full impact, as it sounded rustic at best. I’m getting the impression the hardy Saskatoon berries on the table today and my hardy Mother have a lot in common.

Eventually, they moved into the new home and during the days, my grandpa would head off to work, while the older siblings would head off to school and my Mom would stay home with my Grandma and her pet turtle. The family grew by one more, and from here, my Mother spent her years etching out a life in central Alberta.

    If there was one word I could use to describe my memory of my Grandma, it would be baker. Most of the memories I recall include arriving on the doorstep at my grandparents' house, walking past my grandpa’s large motorbike that was usually being Magivered back together after one crash or another, then being greeted by the open door of a house that had that thick, warm bakery air. The comforting scents of yeast, butter, vanilla, and sugar that can bundle up an eight year old like a welcoming hug.

    She had the softest hands I’ve ever felt. Hands that had spent a lifetime massaging canola oil onto the outside of bread dough and rolling them into buns. You place a mason jar of preserved fruit in front of me next to bread fresh from the oven, and I’m instantly forty years younger.  Food was at the center of everything we did growing up.

    As for that motorbike in the driveway. My grandpa was short, muscular, and built like a hardworking farmer. I can’t recall if I have this image of him because it's real or if that’s just how I remember him. I can picture seeing him in a white muscle shirt at an older age, probably well into his 60’s and having solid muscular arms and an evident six-pack that you could spot through that old white shirt. 

He rode large, heavy cruiser-style motorcycles. The type of bike that, if your feet weren’t firmly planted on the ground, you would likely tip over. He rode them all over North America with extra clothes and camping gear strapped to the back. One time as a child, he had me strapped to the back for a short ride. I, however, have an inability to stay awake while anyone is driving so they ended up tying me to the backseat with a rope so I didn’t slide off. As predicted, I fell asleep, and that rope held me safely in place. Ahh, life in the eighties! 

I showed up on those doorsteps excitedly awaiting my next cookie fix plenty of times, only to see one Honda Goldwing or another with the front fender smashed into three and on the ground next to it, the windscreen off, handlebars at an angle, and scratches all down one side. Then out came my grandpa, waddling along with two broken hands, two black eyes, and his belt undone as he couldn’t do it up, looking a bit sheepish. I have no idea why I wasn’t scared off-of motorcycles at a young age after seeing him. It seems the stories of adventure stuck with me more than the idea of a battered bike and broken bones.

    Today, I’ve arrived at my Mom's acreage on the Alberta prairies, still looking for baked treats. A classic old red barn sits on the edge of the yard staring out over wheat fields where a few cattle casually graze. A gas plant in the foreground and the snow-capped Rocky Mountains making up the backdrop. The setting is about as Albertan as it gets.

The front steps to the house looked somewhere between an antique sale and an eviction notice – but I knew exactly what was going on here. These were should I keep or toss it piles, the ones that are left near the end of a move. I could sense it was going to be a bittersweet day. Today would be the last pie ever baked on this acreage. Next week she was moving, for the first time in over twenty years! Grandma Kath would return to a simpler life in town. Hovering around the age of seventy, tending to acreage life was becoming more work than pleasure.

    When I asked my Mom to make something for this book to represent her and the province she has always called ‘home’, she knew exactly what she wanted it to be, a saskatoon berry pie. A berry whose bush can be seen growing wild across the province, from central through western Canada, and up into the Yukon. Much like the locals, Saskatoons are exceptionally resilient and thrive in a variety of growing conditions, able to tolerate a life of unpredictable weather and fleeting sunlight.

    Loved locally and globally, the humble saskatoon has seen some controversy over the years. In 2008, these royal-colored berries were banned in the UK, citing them as a “novel food”, with no history of safe consumption in Britain. Britain's Food Standards Agency removed saskatoon products from shelves, noting there was no evidence the berries were safe to eat.
    
    There was pushback from Canadian farmers, citing that the saskatoon was an “equivalency comparator” to the blueberry. Yet the Brits sank their scientific heels in, stating that on a horticultural level, the saskatoon (Amelanchier alnifolia) belongs to the Rose family (Rosaceae) and thus is more closely related to an apple, despite its appearance. 

    After a bit of back and forth, Canadians reminded the Brits about previous royal visits to Canada, where the Queen had enjoyed some perfectly safe saskatoons. With that, all of the botanical backlash subdued, and there was a quiet return of the saskatoon berry, or apple, or whatever you want to call it, to store shelves across the pond.

    The saskatoons for today’s pie were acquired at a local farmers' market, and I could not be more delighted! 

    First into a pot goes the berries, some sugar, and a bit of corn starch to thicken the juice. My Mom prefers the corn starch as it doesn’t clump up like flour. That’s left to simmer on the stovetop while we move onto the crust.

    In a new bowl goes the flour; a pastry cutter is then used to cut in some Tenderflake lard. In yet another bowl, a bit of vinegar is mixed with egg and water, and once it's mixed, the two bowls are slowly combined. The resulting dough is then worked and rolled, a crust is formed, and our saucy berries find their way into the shell, then into the oven.

    While this bakes, we head outside for my final farm tour. Everything we pass seems to have some historical significance. There’s the pony harness that won several championship ribbons a few years back, the steel anvil that my grandpa used during his time at the Bar-U Ranch to shoe horses. The empty field where Marlo the mini donkey and Crystal the mini pony once grazed. The vacant chicken coup that once produced the eggs, and fitting to the day's events, on the step in the antiques pile were several old steel wash basins that my grandpa used to use to collect Saskatoon berries in a canoe on the edge of the river, a lifetime ago.

    The years have passed, but the recipe has stayed the same. She was now the Grandma, and somehow I was still that little boy opening the front door of my Grandma’s house, smelling my way through the bakery air, looking for Grandma's baked goods.

Recipe: 

Mix:

• 2 cups of berries (fresh or frozen)
• 1 cup of sugar
• 2-4 tbsp cornstarch

Add the berries to a pot and warm over medium heat. Then add the sugar and mix it into the berries. Next, add the cornstarch and let the mix simmer. After ten minutes, it should be more like a sauce than a soup. If it’s still soupy, add more cornstarch. About twenty minutes from start to finish. 
    

Crust:

• Pure Tenderflake lard
• 2 cups flour
• 1 whole egg whisked 
• 1 tbsp vinegar
• 1 cup water 

Break down the Tenderflake by cutting it with a pastry cutter. Next, cut in the flour. In a one cup measuring cup, mix the egg with the vinegar, then fill the cup with water and mix a bit more. Using the Tenderflake will do what the name says and leave you with a layered crust that is both tender and flaky.  

Once the wet and dry mixtures are ready in separate bowls, slowly add the liquid to the flour mix while working it together with a fork. Once mixed, it should have a tacky feel. From here, sprinkle flour on your table and work the dough by hand until it's soft to the touch and no longer tacky.

From here, roll the crust until it's roughly 1/4” thick, then fold it in half and half again to form a triangle. Move the point of the triangle to the center of a pie pan and unfold it back into a circle to cover the pan and drape over the edge. Next, press the dough lightly into the pan and around the edge, then trim off the excess.

Roll out any leftover dough to the same thickness to make the top of the crust..

Next, pour the hot berry mix into the crust; it should settle about an inch from the top.

Next, make a quick egg wash from an egg and a tsp of water. Brush the edges of the crust with egg wash to form a binding agent for the top and bottom of the pie.

From here, take the pie top and fold it in half, then fold it in half lengthwise again so it looks like a wrap. Then make five or six small cuts about ¾” long spaced about ¾” apart from each other at a 45 ° angle. Then unroll it once and repeat the process at an opposite angle. Roll it back the other way again to make the wrap shape and place it on one side of the pie. Next, unroll it until it covers the top of the pie.

Use a fork and press the top and bottom edges together to make a seal and keep the pie from bubbling out over the edges while it bakes. 

Brush the top with egg wash and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, then into the oven and let bake for 20 minutes at 400oF. After 20 mins turn to 350oF and let it bake for another  25-30 minutes.

The excess dough can be rolled out, painted with egg wash, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar then baked as a little treat as well.

Once ready, let cool for at least thirty minutes, cut into slices and enjoy. Alternatively, the pie pairs nicely with drizzled cream, ice cream or kids 🙂.