Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-08-25
MIR. LONG AS 4 PIEMAkER.
Annual Meeting of Unique AssOcta'
ton I'm Maine.

Lewiston Cores. New York Tribune.
AS soon as Secretary John D. Long ar
rived at the old home farm in Buckfield
last Friday afternoon he was waited on by
Zenas Longley, president of the Hartford
(Me.) Custard Pie Association. Secretary
Long had been in town only two or three
hours, but he already had on his crash suit
and was putting arms on one OF the rustic
chairs, in the manufacture Of which he
busies himself In his vacations at the old
home The chair was left unfinished last
fall.
Johnny said Uncle Zenas, picking up
a splint and beginning to white, when can
We make plans for the annual meeting of
the Custard Pie Association? We want to
suit our time to yours. But we was sort OF
reckoning on next week-say Saturday.
Il think that will suit me first rate, said
Mr.. Long. II never feel like debating on
| those matters when | get up here in Buck
field. l am one of the passengers here.
Make your plans and let me know.
Thank you, Johnny" replied Uncle
Zenas. You always were good boy, and
You are improvin' right along.
Therefore it was settled that the annual
reunion and pie baking contest of the Hart
ford (Me.) Custard Pie Association should
take place at the old picnic grounds in the
town of Hartford today.
This Is the fourteenth annual meeting of
the association. 1t has been success from
the start. The camp meeting grounds in
Hartford have from time to time way back
been celebrated as picnic grounds. When
John d. Long was a little shaver he used
to take his basket of good things and go
over there from Buckfeld for days out
ing with the little folks from his school, In
later years, more decorously, but none the
less with all the delight inspired by vaca-
ton days back at the old home he has
never missed picnic on the old spot.
Up in oxford, where the hens take per-
sonal pride in every egg deposited in the
nest, and where the cows give milk So
thick that it clings to the side of the pail,
custard pies things to dream about
They are the favorite dessert at the Hart
ford picnic grounds. They are not thrown
about carelessly that they serve as cush-
ions for the unwary. They are guarded as
carefully as the ammunition below decks
in Johnny Longs big ships. They are
cut with the care of a gunner trimming
cartridge.
Years ago the folks that came to the
Hartford camp ground got to Dragging
about their custard pies. There was quiet
rivalry among the housewives. The fam
lilies that picnic there do not sit by them
selves. The oxford county people are not
of that selfish nature. All the food is I'M
loaded from the hampers and the pals
and the buckets and set forth upon one
| long table. The cookery that is thus ranged
| in competition is just the best that each
woman can produce; there is never any
| doubt about that.
1t was natural to fall to discussing Gus
tard pies over that board-to discussing
them orally as well as gustatorly. And out
of the boasting over "marms cooking
came forth the Hartford Custard Pie Asso-
citation. And as the men folks did most
of the Boosting, it was decreed that the
men folks should do the cooking of the
pies. And the contests that have enSued
have been notable and sloppy. That is,
they were sloppy at first. The women pro-
tested that of all the ridiculous perform
ances those early pie-baking contests were
the worst. But now it is only some tyro
who falls down on the way to the oven
with brimming custard pie in his floury
| hands. The man who does such thing in
| these days has his nose ANONYMOUSLY rub
bed in the puddle.
By dint of long practice, and in order to
back up their boasts, the men of Buckfield
and Hartford have trained themselves so
that they concoct custard pies that
excel anything that can be met with any
where in the great New England pie belt
| They used to say that Johnny Long
| couldn't cook very good pie. He used
enough, but it didn't stand up when the
tasters were applied. The committee of
bindfolded women who used to do the
tasting declared that it wasn't near as good
as that put together by an old bachelor
who owns a little forty-acre farm on the
HUFF road, in the north of Hartford. The
| old bachelor had done his own cooking for
thirty years, and so, of course, he started
with a great lead over Mr.. Long.
But Mr.. Long is a man of great persist
ence. Fully five years ago he was nigh
the chief cook in the custard pie contests.
Everything counts in the custard PIE game.
The man who Is too wasteful gets big
black mark from the women who are doing
the judging Wasteful folk have no place
| in Oxford county. A man mustn't slop his
pie in getting 1t to the oven. He mustn't
burn too much wood. He must understand
the great art of making the crust stay on
| the bottom without anchoring it with peb-
bles. There mustn't be too much peeking
nor too frequent changing of the oven door.
things
| cooking of a custard pie that even the gov
| ernor of a state doesn't catch onto the first
time. But the people of Hartford are ready
to confess that the Secretary of the Navy
has got the thing down pretty fine, and
they judge by the twinkle of the eye of
johnny" Long that he has few new
wrinkles that he proposes to work in this
season.