Peddling pies, preserving tradition: Mankato baker keeps things homemade, fresh

MANKATO, Minn. — The fine white dust hovers in the air oh so briefly before drifting down and settling, gently, upon the kitchen counter.

The rolling pin, lightly dusted with flour, sits to one side, ready and waiting to flatten the ball of pie crust into a 9-inch circle. The smell of nutmeg — or is it cinnamon? — fills the room, pulled along in the warm updraft from the slowly heating oven and stove.

Is this scene familiar? Jean Jacobs wonders.

The truth is, few people make fresh homemade pies anymore, The Free Press (http://bit.ly/1twIEqS ) reported. Sitting at her kitchen table folding pie boxes, the Mankato-based pie peddler was forced to admit it.

Few people have the time, or inclination, to bake.

"In this day and age, you don't find a lot of people that bake pies fresh," she said. "A lot of them are frozen."

Frozen. Yuck, she said.

"People like my pies because they're made fresh, made from scratch," she said. "And my pie crust is an original. You can't find it in any cookbook. I've modified and changed it over the years. People tell me it reminds them of their grandmothers'."

It's light and flaky, she said. And when used to contain a layered apple, blueberry, cherry and raspberry pie filling?

"It just pops in your mouth."

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Jacobs is perhaps best known throughout Greater Mankato as the Pie Peddler. A vendor at the Mankato Farmers' Market for eight years now, she specializes in fresh-baked fruit pies and desserts, selling more than 800 of the golden-crusted delicacies during the summer alone.

Getting ready for each market day takes about 13 hours. She spends her entire Friday baking at least 40 nine-inch pies, as well as several dozen baby pies or "lil' buddies."

Barb Keating of Mankato, one of her most faithful customers, said not only are the pies delicious, they're unique. In addition to traditional fruit pies, Jacobs bakes two- and three-part pies with dough dividers and multiple flavors.

"She has a red, white and blue pie, which is my grandson's favorite," Keating said. "She puts a dough wall in and she'll do one third apple, one third blueberry and one third cherry."

Another pie, the "chapel," is a combination of cherry and apple. Jacobs said she invented it — and the divided pie concept — when she couldn't decide what kind of pie to make for a family get together.

"My sister and I were planning a holiday dinner," she said. "We had a small group of nine people and I didn't think two pies would be enough ... so I made two-part pies. After that, the divided pies really took off."

Jacobs also makes holiday pies — like brownie cream cheese and walnut cranberry tort — which she sells during winter farmers' markets. People can order specific pies or flavors in advance, and then pick them up at the market itself.

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About $700 million in pies (that's 186 million of them) are sold in grocery stores every year, according to the American Pie Council. If you lined up the number of pies sold in the U.S. in one year alone, they would circle the globe and then some.

Nearly one out of five American prefer apple pie. Pumpkin is the second most popular with 13 percent of Americans preferring it to any other, shows Pie Council surveys.

And pie isn't just for dessert. Nearly 35 percent of Americans say they've had pie for breakfast, 66 percent for lunch and 59 percent for a midnight snack.

When asked what dessert Americans would prefer a friend or family member bring to their house for holiday winner, pie was the clear winner.

What makes pies so popular? Jacobs thinks tradition has a lot to do with it.

Pie gathers families around the oven and table during the holidays, whether or not the fruity desserts are home-made or not.

It's family that drew Jacobs into pie making too, she said. Though she's won State Fair ribbons for her creations, it was memories of her grandma that first inspired her to get baking.

"I guess my interest in pies started probably 20 years ago," Jacobs said. "My grandmother use to bake. I grew up on a farm and my grandmother baked for the hired help. I was just a little girl, but I think I got a lot of my passion for it from her . I was only 5 yeas old when she passed away so I don't remember much about her, but I've heard stories about her baking bread and pie. She was always baking. She always had the oven going ... It's kind of in the family I guess."

This is an AP Member Exchange shared by The Free Press