Pies of March.

On pie.

It’s a good month for pie. Custard pie and apple pie. Sweet American pie or savoury English pies. Elegant French pie and rustic Italian pie. Perfectly crispy and shattering shortcrust pies made with lard and melting tender phyllo pies stuffed with worthy vegetables like spinach. 

Showy open pies and mysterious and shy coquettish closed pied. Celebratory and regal towers of pies. And pies that are not at all pies but called pies, like pasta pies and potato pies. Fancy pies called timbales and otherwise named pies like pasties.

Those tall wobbly fat cream pies and skinny and sticky thin ones, the caramelised sugary fine [in French] ones – the very neatly arranged ones. Steaming pies and pies that melt ice cream. And the fully-fledged tarty pies like banoffee pie and lemon meringue pie.

Some of the best pies are the nostalgic ones – cherry pie or banana cream pie – the whipped light ones. Or the humblest ones – potato and cheese is a very good pie. (@margotehenderson knows.) The pies that thud when plated. That are not so simple to gather on a fork. Those are the very best pies.

It is definitely a good month for pies. One of the most pleasing words of the English language.

And talking about pie is almost as good as eating a pie. Which is definitely as good as making a pie.

The pinnacle of pie is sharing a pie. And that is the best thing about a pie. And even if you don’t share your pie, it’s you and the pie. You are never alone or lonely with a pie. A pie is always full of and filled with personality. A pie is almost a person. That’s the thing about pie.

So when in doubt, make a pie.

Or make something, and call it a pie.

Rochelle Canteen’s cheese and potato pie.