![]() Many have tried to domesticate the regional answer to wild blueberries, native to the wilds of the Northwest, without success. The thing about huckleberries is, you can't really tame them. ![]() (There are a lot of theories flying around.) Mostly, people don't get hung up on how the meat pie got here, they just eat them, at restaurants like the long-running Lasyone's in downtown Natchitoches and events like New Orleans' annual Jazz Fest, where the locally made pies (look for the equally popular crawfish, and even a vegetarian version) are popular enough that when the festival was cancelled two years in a row, the vendor that makes them held pop-ups, so fans could get their fix. Made with beef and pork, and seasoned with onions, bell pepper, and cayenne, among other things, a Natchitoches meat pie looks a lot like an empanada some food historians will say that's because nearby Spanish colonists contributed to their creation. For almost as long as there have been European colonists in the area, meat pies have been central to the local cuisine. Nowadays, the much smaller town is known primarily for two things - one, being the place where Steel Magnolias was filmed in the late 1980s, the other being meat pies. Denis, the handsome, if sleepy, river burg of Natchitoches has New Orleans beat by four whole years. Founded in 1714 by French explorer Louis Juchereau de St. Quick - what's the oldest city in Louisiana? Answer: probably not the one you're thinking of. Stop by one of the Homemade Ice Cream & Pie Kitchen locations, scattered around Louisville, for one of the most popular versions. This is more like a pecan pie, sometimes with chocolate chunks, sometimes not, along with a splash or two of bourbon, talk about a civilized upgrade. What you do find a lot of here, however, and not just during Derby Week, is the Kentucky bourbon pie, on the menu in cafes, restaurants, and bakeries all over the state. (That decision that has led to more than a few cease and desist letters over the years.) Let's just say that nowadays, you get your Derby Pie from Kern's Kitchen in Louisville - they bake approximately 100,000 of them a year, and will ship anywhere in the country - or you don't get it at all. Pie is serious business around here, just like the Kentucky Derby, and when the Kerns became popular, back in the 1950s, for their Derby Pie, which is something like a really good chocolate chunk walnut cookie, except baked into a pie, they had the good sense to trademark the name. France has its network of spies, just making sure that sparkling wine producers elsewhere are not tempted into calling their work champagne Kentucky has the Kern family. ![]()
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