Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
They made look like turnovers but they are fried pies. Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Atlanta, Georgia native Gladys Knight provides interesting culinary insights into Georgia foodways. Born in 1944, Knight grew up on fried chicken dinners on Sundays served with southern side dishes and desserts. “Our Sunday dinners featured fried chicken to die for,” she says, “and the all day eating frenzies came to a grand finale with lemon pies, spice cakes, coconut cakes, and my Aunt Velma’s famous fried pies.” Fried pies or crab lanterns, are deep fried pastries filled with dried fruit. The dried fruit provides an intense sweetness. Fried pies developed in the south out of two necessities: a use for leftover pie crust from making a traditional pie and they provided pies made with dried fruit that would not spoil and thus could travel well in a lunch bucket on in the very hot south.
