Watermelon Rind Pie

Reader Contribution by Robin Mather
Published on July 16, 2013
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The editors at MOTHER EARTH NEWS get the afternoon munchies just like every other bunch of working folks, so we were delighted last week when colleague Landon Hall, associate editor at our sister magazine Motorcycle Classics, delivered a beautiful pie about 3 p.m.

His wife, Marie, had baked the pie, he said. And then he made a curious request: Guess the secret ingredient.

With pleasure, we all said, digging in. Summer squash, guessed one. Another lobbied for green tomatoes. In the end, only Editor-in-Chief Cheryl Long guessed correctly: Watermelon rind. “I recognized the flavor of my grandmother’s watermelon rind pickles,” she said.

It’s a rich, sweet, mincemeat-like pie filling. You don’t really taste the watermelon rind; you just enjoy its mild crunch. Turns out the pie that Marie baked was from the inestimable Ken Haedrich, whose recipes virtually always please. So we happily share his recipe with you.

And the next time you crack open a watermelon, realize that the sweet, dripping flesh is only the first good part. Save the rind for the second.

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