Ricotta Cheese and Honey Pie

PLACE THAT MURMURS

PHOTO BY CLARENCE LEHMAN

This recipe comes from a book my brother-in-law cherished, Greek Island Cooking, by Theonie Mark.  I think it is out of print now, it was first published in 1974. I love the book, it is worth tracking down.  “Two Used” are listed as available at Amazon as I write.

Theonie calls ricotta "mizithra", which sounds a like some sort of Elf-food from Lord of the Rings. In fact this whole dish just might be Elven, but don’t hold that against it.

Here is what Theonie does:

Crust:  1 cup flour, 5 Tbl butter, 1 Tbl sugar ~4 Tbl ice water.

Sift flour into bowl, add sugar and cut in butter until coarse crumbs form.  Then add ice water slowly with your fingers or a fork until the dough can be pressed into a ball. Refrigerate the dough briefly, roll it out, and line a 9” pie pan with the crust.

Preheat oven to 350 – then bake the crust 12 minutes until golden.

Filling: Mix together 1 lb ricotta, ½ cup sugar ½ cup honey, 3 eggs beaten, 1 teaspoon of grated lemon peal.

Pour mixture into the crust.

Bake at 350 for 55 min, till golden brown, and beginning to crack.  It puffs up a bit while cooking, to later settle down, dense and rich.

It tastes of the gold in honey.  The crust gets honey-soaked.  You get honey-drunk. 

I serve it warm, just as it is, or sometimes with raspberries and whipped cream. I serve it as a fine ending to a good day.

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My only trip to Greece was for work.  I had an extra day of grace, given to me by the fates, a lower-fares-if-you-stay-over-Saturday-night-when-your-meeting-ends-on-Friday Blessing.  I consulted the Meeting Oracle, and she said if I had one free day in Greece given to me by the Fates, that I had to go to Delphi.  So I went.

Rather than go it alone, I asked around at the meeting until I found someone who was interested in coming along, a gentleman named Clarence. I drove. As it turned out, in the spirit of Pythgoras, Clarence enjoyed teaching mathematics. So as I drove, he shared with me a series of equations, drawing them into the air with his fingertip, just inside the windshield, floating there suspended between us and the highway. It was a bit of a trick, trying to see past the invisible functions shimmering in my mind's eye just above the dashboard, while simultaneously trying to work out the traffic signs, sounding them out letter-by-letter from the Greek, and struggling to remember what it was the concierge had said, many hours before, regarding the point where one should turn off the highway if one was seeking Delphi.  So the journey required some serious polishing of my poor powers of concentration. Miraculously we made it there and back safely, and I was truly delighted by Clarence's charming company, although sadly I left the day as mathematically untransformed by Fourier and by Clarence as I began it, still I had a fine new friend. I think Clarence enjoyed the day too, despite being stuck with a rather pathetic mathematics pupil, he was a cheerful and interesting companion.

Delphi was beautiful -- steep wild coast plunging down to the sea, sheep with long soft wool and wearing beautiful bells were dotting the highway. Greek sheep are picturesque, but prodigious risk takers! Practitioners of Extreme Highway Standing. They just stood there with utter certainty that their bells and their wild-eyed shepherd would be adequate protection to save them from the differential equation that was barreling down the highway, careening around the blind curve in the road.  It didn't seem to phase them that the driver seated just behind the invisible thread of mathematics was paying far too little mind to the thousand foot drop just over the edge of their thin bit of sheep-smattered road, because she was wondering, “let X = what????”

Delphi amphitheater, photo by Clarence Lehman

There, just past the Immovable and Scenic Sheep, was a temple to Apollo, fine tall cypress, and a stadium where the Pythian games, pre-Olympics, were once played. (To think, this place anticipated the inspiring international curling events we all watch so avidly every four years!) At Delphi I learned that not only athletics, but poetry and flute had a critical part in the Greek games. There in Delphi was a grand theater for this arty purpose, which echoed wonderfully from center stage when Clarence and I clapped our hands. The echo would have had fun playing with the Irish whistle hidden in my purse, had I the courage to bring it out and introduce them. "Echo, this Whistle, Whistle, Echo".  But I didn’t. I was afraid it might annoy the other tourists passing through, or that music might draw guards or ghosts. The ancient theater seats 5,000.  That is a lot of ghosts.

The mystery of the Oracle still imbues the place, and the leaves still murmur with a voice of their own. Graceful statues of those who once-were still linger there, now in the museum, some who were retained to celebrate the voice of Apollo spoken through the Oracle, and some who marked the ecstasy of Dionysius. (Dionysius was the cheerful wine God who occupied the place for the part of the year Apollo wasn't talking.) Hadrian passed through – I wonder if his clap also set loose a satisfying echo in the amphitheater. How could he have resisted? And lots of dogs apparently hung out here too, once upon a time, very fine and ancient dogs, who inspired their human friends to leave their images, in marble and in bronze. As it turns out, modern dogs also like Delphi, and enjoy sleeping nearby in the sun. After all it, is the center of the world, Omphalos, what better place for a dog to sigh as he dreams?

Here is Greek tune to drip honey into mizithra by: Black Velvet with John Sherry Playing Suleiman's Kopanitsa. Its 11/8 time, those whacky Greeks!  Unlike lesser mortals, they can even dance to it.