Saturday, December 06, 2008

Pie Crust Scraps and Family

Today is our tamalada. The DRE-BFF is over here, along with her twin ferrets (aka her high-energy, high-intelligence boys) and we've been churning out pork, chicken mole, and corn-jalapeno-queso-fresca tamales. At some point, the subject of pie crust scraps came up and how you sprinkle them with sugar and cinnamon, bake up 'em up, and fight to get them.

The Husband's mother called them "Stick-ems." Or "Stick-ums." He's not sure which. The DRE-BFF's mother called them "Gnarbles," pronounced with a hard g. Guh-narbles. My mom didn't make pie crust, but when I do, I call them snails, because I roll them up.

Neither The Husband nor the DRE-BFF have any idea why their moms call them by those names. "They don't stick to anything," I ask The Husband. "So why?"

"I dunno."

It's just an accepted family fact. Stick-ems and gnarbles. A tribe shibboleth.

What does your family call them?

6 comments:

Bea said...

My family didn't have a special name for them -- but I did have my own kid-sized metal baking pans, which I'd take from my play kitchen and use in the real oven to make them.

ccr in MA said...

Snails, absolutely. Yum! And when my mother made "cheese snails", I was outraged! Snails means cinnamon!

Kari said...

My mother never made a pie, as far as I know, but I make them, and I always kind of make them look like a braid. (solid in the middle, sliced on a diagonal on each side, dotted with butter and folded over into what kind of looks like a braid). My children would totally stage a revolt if there were cheese, too. Cinnamon and sugar all the way, dotted with butter. Did you make the Pioneer Woman crust into snails?

Anonymous said...

My family never made these, but my husband's grandma did--year round. They called them Bumble Bees. Don't know why.

Earthbound Spirit said...

My parents are highly unimaginative, so piecrust scraps were called just that. sigh.

My dh & kids, otoh, have named the cookie cutters! There's Alonzo, and Bernie and...

Lizard Eater said...

Kari -- yup! In fact, I made the crust a week before Thanksgiving and since I wanted to "test" the crust before making pie, I took one crust and made nothing but snails. Yum.