Did people really put pies in the window in the olden days, eldergays or was it just for cartoons and movies?

It's a cartoon meme with no bearing on actual practice by anyone alive.

Like actually making food yourself, R1.

I think it was done to cool them down after cooking.

It was done in Southern and Midwestern small towns.

I live on the 9th floor and put baked goods out on the balcony to cool, any time the weather is cool.

Who told you this, R4? Personally seen Southerners and Midwesterners do it?

Whycome Westerners did not do it? Or Connecticut Yankees?

Hmmmmm.....?

My mother was a master pie baker. She used to do this.

Although, one day a squirrel jumped up on the window, ate part of the pie and ran around the kitchen leaving blueberry foot prints. When my mother came back from the store the squirrel was gone and she had to deal with the aftermath.

True story!

R6, because I lived among the folksy peoples of the South and the Midwest. I’ve seen things!

I still do that. Best way to cool it off.

Oh my goodness R7! Le tragedie if I ever heard one. Did she ever bake again?

In a window?!

People don't raise their windows anymore these days!

Pies I do it with a cheese cage.

I put covered casseroles on the balcony in winter to cool down before the fridge. Works great.

When I lived in a shared student house in London one of my housemates baked a quiche and actually set it outside to cool (the rest of us thought she was nuts). When she checked on it an hour later it had been partially eaten by neighborhood cats. I’m not making this up.

The window was pivotal; it was called Presenting (Pie)Hole.

My brother in law makes a buche de noel every year for Christmas. He's really proud of it. To keep it cool, he placed it on the screened porch and came back later to an empty plate.

I didn't tell anyone but I smelled my other sister's dog's breath and it definitely smelled like chocolate.

R16, why were you French kissing your other sister’s dog?

I’ve never heard of Buche de Noel and here on DL today if seen it twice in one day. Someone also mentioned it in the people pooping in San Francisco thread.

r18, seriously?

Its the French cake that turned into Ho-Hos. An industrial French supermarket Buche can be just as toxic.

It’s called a yule log.

But beware of those pesky hobos, trying to steal pies!

No, we had pie safes up here in old New England. You leave it in a windowsill and no telling what will find its way into it or on it.

We also eat it for breakfast because that's the right way.

Freshly baked fruit pies were placed by the window during warm summer months to allow the pie to naturally cool down. Immediately sticking it in the fridge to cool risks turning the flaky crust soggy. Of course, with central airconditioning, you can leave the pie out to cool in room temperature.

A "yule log" is what Santa Claus calls a particularly large No. 2.

Americans now bake in their air conditioned kitchens?

If you were living in a place of extreme rural poverty with no screens in the windows and you were so fucked up on moonshine you didn't care if the pie fell out, somebody ate it or flies shat all over it.

I prefer to bake in my open concept kitchen, using my stainless steel gas oven. Then, I serve it to my guests ( we like to entertain), who are all gathered in the kitchen, because that's where all guests are supposed to gather. After we have finished, I wipe off the granite countertops and spectacular backsplash, before retiring to the large family room ( the one with high ceilings) and light the wood burning fireplace. It's a heavenly night. And my pies are hits; no need to cool them off on the sill.

Wouldn't uncovered pies with fruit attract wasps and bees? I wouldn't want to bite into that kind of surprise.

R30 colossal frau magazine fail as insects will come up through the slats.

I was just looking at some fancy cookbook pie-baking recipes - and there was much made of letting pies cool to room temperature so the cooler fillings thicken up and taste better. They don’t specifically say to leave them on windowsills tho! And I would have thought that uncovered and outside - they’d be a magnet for flies? Blah!

A cartoon meme only!

My grandmothers both did this up until the 1980s. They lived in different cities with one in suburbia, one in a busy part of her town. Both were excellent bakers. They learned this practice from their mothers.

Yes, before rest areas, before department store rest rooms, before Grindr, how were you supposed to attract a hobo for the homosex?

Until I started high school I didn't know pole vaulting was real. I thought it was just a cartoon thing like hitting someone with an anvil. It still seems crazy to me you can use a stick to propel yourself over walls and stuff

Yes, people really did that. It was a good way to let the pie cool, but of course there was always the possibility that an animal might come by and munch on it or a person (usually a hobo) would come by and steal it.

Do Scots people really toss capers?

I have my servants stand over them and cool them with a pair of fans.

[quote]Do Scots people really toss capers?

Capers are a pickled item. I don't know if Scottish people toss them, ES-Elliot.

Caber, you mean to say

People who are now dead may have used a windowsill for a pie cooling spot.

It was done before modern fridges, mostly before WWII.

In NYC in the winter people would put window boxes outside their window rather than buy ice for their ice boxes.

Ralph Kramden literally had an ice box.

Born in 1965 and grew up in New England. I have NEVER seen a pie in a window.

Grew up in the South -- NEVER seen a pie on a windowsill.

I, too, was born in 1965 and grew up in New England. I couldn't swear to never having seen a pie in a window, but it certainly wasn't an everyday event.

My grandmother made pies in our house all the time. Not a one cooled in the window. The lack of occlusion between inside and storm windows precluded any such silliness. There'd've been Pie on the Floor.

Cooked a chicken once. Left it on the side bench to cool off and when I returned my 3 cakes were on the bench helping themselves to it. I just laughed - what else could I have done.

Were they home made or store bought cakes, r48?

When I buy Hostess Fruit Pies, I always leave them on the windowsill before eating.

Didn't Nancy Clutter of Kansas and Truman Capote's 'In Cold Blood' have a friend round in the morning, before she later went horse riding, in orderr to teach her how to properly bake a berry or cherry pie and leave it to kitchen bench cool this way?

I might be misremembering in this aspect of her pie artistry and process....but we know what happened to her later that night in American True Crime snnals.

[quote]Whycome

What the ...?

R51 This says only to cook it on a rack.

Yes. And at least half we stolen by colorful hobos in parched pants who carried their all worldly belongings in a red kerchief tied to a stick.

Pie safe for those who don't know what R23 is talking about.

R53 sorry “cool.”

r37 is hobophobic.

[quote]Caber, you mean to say

I wouldn't mind giving Dirk Caber a toss.

How did caber tossing find its way into this threa

No one speaks of bindles anymore, and that saddens me.

I bet there were trans hobos. Safer for travelling. But like so much of trans history that has been erased.

[quote]Wouldn't uncovered pies with fruit attract wasps and bees? I wouldn't want to bite into that kind of surprise.

Yes they did. Have you never heard of Shoo-Fly Pie?

I lived in a turn of the century building once and there was a 24 by 24 sliding door in the wall of the kitchen. It was an "ice box". Ice men used to come around and they would put ice in it. We used it for beer and milk and things. But the box hung outside the building and kept everything cold.

R60, I know. When my mom gave me a slice of pie, I'd pretend she was a waitress at a roadside diner. I'd sit at the counter...and ignore her.

There's a website where hobos pose NAKED.

The other day I was watching an episode of Little House On The Prairie on Amazon and Caroline Ingall's left an Apple Pie on the window sill to cool. Then the pie was stolen.

My grandmother had a pie safe in her kitchen where she would put pies to cool. It was really cool, painted yellow with tin inserts with pinholes. It didn't look too "country". When she died, my mother got it and used it in our kitchen. I really wanted it when my mom passed, but her bitch sister took it before I could get it.

I love some of the topics you people bring up.

r66 Please let me know where to send your citation for flagrant apostrophe abuse.

A friend bought a very old house, one that was built around the turn of the last century.

There was a pie-cooling cabinet in the kitchen! Yup, build right in, so you didn't have to risk your baked products by the city windows.