cover image Perfect Fruit Pies: Award-Winning Recipes from Across America

Perfect Fruit Pies: Award-Winning Recipes from Across America

. Storey Books, $9.95 (152pp) ISBN 978-0-88266-638-9

A nationwide contest sponsored by Missouri's Stark Brothers Nurseries in search of the ``perfect fruit pie'' has yielded these uneven examples of what is perhaps America's oldest dessert. The top prize winners--Indiana creamy peach pie, blackberry pinwheel cobbler and ``the gods' raspberry pie''--are standouts, and it is gratifying to find relative rarities (apricots, gooseberries, mulberries) given their due. But less appealing entries (fresh cherry-chocolate chip pie) and ingenuous effusions (``I named my pie `Cheery Cherry Pie' because it always cheers me up'') are too sugary. Instructions vary in competence; crust recipes, for example, are not included with all recipes or listed in cross-references, while an introductory section on baking procedures provides little that cannot be found in good general cookbooks. Though serving up some solid and intriguing fare, this is not a first choice. (Feb.)