Classic Cherry Pie from Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood

Written and Photographed by Rebecca Peters-Golden

Today we’re proud to introduce Eating My Words, a new feature by contributor Rebecca Peters-Golden where we’ll revisit food scenes from literature and recreate the dishes described therein.

Rebecca, a graduate student in literature at Indiana University, is also a compulsive baker who has been known to make three-layer chocolate cakes out of boredom, so we’re happy to make the most out of her vast talents with this series.

While visiting my sister in Philadelphia this past December, I was bemoaning the grayness of winter and wishing for more fun in my life.

Always eager to make me stop whining help, my sister suggested that I participate in the Philadelphia Artclash Collective‘s annual “Fun-A-Day,” through which I might combat precisely such grayness and lack of amusement by creating something every day of January.

Projects ranged from the artistic (some genius painted a picture of a Buffy character every day) to the happenstance, and everything in between. But what would I do that would be truly fun?!

In the year and a half before Fun-A-Day, I had been working on my dissertation in literature and feeling a creeping anxiety that reading for pleasure was becoming a thing of the past.

To this end, I wanted not only to do something that would combine my favorite things—reading and cooking.

But also, I wanted to remind myself of the pleasure I take in reading by removing it from the realm of the purely academic and placing it in the realm of . . . well . . . fun.

So, I decided to recreate some of my favorite moments of food in literature. And then, you know, eat them.

Now, six months and many, many sticks of butter later, I feel at peace with literature and more excited about food than ever.

For my first good food story, then, here is Truman Capote’s combination of literature and food: a scene from In Cold Blood, Capote’s non-fiction novel that tells the story of the 1959 Clutter murder in Holcomb, Kansas.

In this scene, seventeen year-old Nancy Clutter teaches a young neighbor to bake a cherry pie.

Midway through my Fun-A-Day, while also writing a chapter of my dissertation that includes this scene, I made a delightful discovery.

Namely, that an enterprising writer for Best Life magazine dug Nancy Clutter’s actual cherry pie recipe out of the New York Public Library archives.

I’ve modified her recipe a bit—for one thing, Nancy used pre-made piecrusts and frozen cherries, and I use fresh sour cherries and homemade pie crust.

Capote writes:

“Nancy and her protégée, Jolene Katz, were . . . satisfied with their morning’s work; indeed, the latter, a thin thirteen-year-old, was agog with pride. For the longest while she stared at the blue-ribbon winner, the oven-hot cherries simmering under the crisp lattice crust, and then she was really overcome, and hugging Nancy, asked, ‘Honest, did I really make it myself?’ Nancy laughed, returned the embrace, and assured her that she had—with a little help. . . . Jolene cut a piece of pie. ‘Boy!’ she said, wolfing it down. ‘I’m going to make one of these every day seven days a week’ ” (24-25).

Jolene, I could not agree more. Here is my take on the Clutter family cherry pie.