Pie vs. Pie
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and the city’s proposed ban on trans fat is looming. So it is a good time to ask: How will this affect the pie? Though the city council’s proposed ban, which may be revised next month, wouldn’t affect home cooks, it’s an impetus to assess the relative merits of the partially hydrogenated foods.
Since shortening was commercialized into the American diet nearly a century ago, everyday pastry makers have been folding cold lumps of the creamy white fat into flour in search of the perfect crust. Nearly every pie crust recipe today calls for at least a quarter of the fat to be shortening. Conventional wisdom has it that shortening is what makes crust crispy and flaky.
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