The Blaine County Journal News-Opinion - We've Got The County Covered

Pie is the traditional dessert for a good old fashioned Thanksgiving dinner. Only certain pies will do mind you if your theme is Thanksgiving from yesteryear.

Of course pumpkin is an old time favorite and has been on the Thanksgiving dessert table for generations. So has mincemeat and mincemeat is much more interesting. Years ago the Presbyterian ladies used to can mincemeat for pies and they were very good pies. The secret ingredient of a good mincemeat pie is to have some deer meat or beef in it. With that is a combination of candied fruit, raisins, nuts and all good things. There is a generic mincemeat in most grocery stores and there are plenty of recipes if you want to make your own. Start early as the recipe is long.

In my family we always had a berry pie along with pumpkin pies. Our berry pies were always June berry and/ or huckleberry pie.

June berries are also called servus berries and in Canada they are called Saskatoon berries. They grow a lot around the Bear Paw Mountains and can get to be very large berries. The berries are very sweet. As a matter of fact they are much more sweet than huckleberries which can be a little tart. People who don’t crave a lot of sweets love huckleberry pies. Huckleberries grow west of the Continental Divide and are easy to find. And There are a few grocery stores along Highway 2 that sell frozen hucks.

Those are the traditional pies of the season but I would also recommend a plate of cookies to honor the grandmas and great grandmas of this area who cooked them regularly. There is a raisin cookie that is delicious. It is a two layer cookie with a center filled with a raisin sauce. Very good! Then there is Gram Thompson’s brown sugar cookies filled with dates and tiny bits of candied fruit.

You can find recipes for both of them and the new bakery in Havre in the old Masonic Temple building carries them as well. A plate of those cookies will make the young kids your favorite relative forever!