By Tabitha Evans Moore
Editor & Publisher

LYNCHBURG, Tenn. — By 8 a.m. Friday, the oil will be heating in two big cookers set up outside Lynchburg First Methodist Church. Once it reaches 350 degrees, the women of the Lynchburg Ladies of Faith will brush the loose flour off roughly 500 frozen pies and lower them in — nine or 10 at a time. Each batch will take around four minutes.

By 1 p.m., those pies will be cooled, slipped into paper sleeves and ready to sell for $3.50 apiece. Whatever is left on Friday goes to Wiseman Park on Saturday morning for the Whiskey Runners Cruisin the Hollow event.

It is the only fundraiser the group holds all year, and by member Phyllis Smith’s count, Lynchburg church women have been at it for more than half a century.

HEIRLOOM RECIPE

Fried pies turn up all over the South, from South Carolina to Texas. According to the Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, they became a staple because they were easy to make from reconstituted dried fruit, especially apples and peaches.

That is still how it is done on Mechanic Street. The group buys dried fruit and cooks it down with water until it is thick. The apricots and peaches go into the pot together.

“I like to use brown sugar because I think it gives it a little bit more flavor,” Smith said.

Smith moved to Lynchburg from southern Illinois 22 years ago and started making pies with the group 12 to 14 years ago. Back then, she said, the late Claytie Cook told her the women had already been frying pies for 40 years — selling them then at Frontier Days.

“Miss Claytie laughed and said they would not let her make fried pies because hers weren’t pretty enough to sell,” Smith said.

In those days the women made only peach and apple, and they fried them inside the church in electric skillets and on the stove. The building smelled like fried pies for weeks, Smith said.

That changed when Beverly Thomas took over the group. Her husband, Bill, announced that nobody was frying pies inside the church anymore, brought his own cooker, filled it with oil and fried them outdoors. Both have since died, but the group bought two large cookers of its own and has fried outside ever since.

The crust recipe was handed to Smith by the women who came before her, and she said it has been in use for about 50 years. It is Crisco, flour, salt and a little water. The dough is made a day ahead so it can chill, and one ball makes five pies.

The chocolate pie recipe came from Mary Alice Burton, who taught at Lynchburg Elementary for decades. She often made the chocolate pies at home and brought them to the church to be fried.

THE PIE PROCESS

This year’s pies were assembled over three evenings beginning in August, with five to eight women working each night. With the fruit cooked and the crust made in advance, Smith said, they can turn out about 150 pies in an hour and a half. The pies are frozen and go into the oil that way. The group’s pastor, Josh Lane, pitches in.

After frying, the pies drain on paper towels and have to cool completely.

“If you package them too early, they sweat and the crust gets soggy,” Smith said.

GET THEM WHILE YOU CAN

The group made almost 700 pies last year and cut back to around 500 this year. Demand had nothing to do with it.

“We’re all getting older,” Smith said. “It’s hard to get young ones interested because they all have families.”

One of the youngest members, she said, is about to turn 60.

Although the flyers say Methodist Women, the group’s official name is Lynchburg Ladies of Faith, and it includes women from other churches. It meets at 5 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month at the church. Debbie Dean is president.

“We take anybody,” Smith said. “We’re all trying to get to heaven.”

They donate the proceeds from the Fried Pie Sale to area non-profits like the Moore County Resource Center and Shepherd’s House in Tullahoma as well as to vetted individuals in need.

“Before we donate to someone, we check them out to make sure everything is legitimate,” Smith said.

The group has sold alongside the car show for four or five years and usually sells out by around noon Saturday. If all 500 go this weekend, Smith said, they may make more next year.

There is no rain plan. In a year this dry, Smith said, she isn’t praying for clear skies.

“My prayer has just been, God help us do what it takes to get rid of our pies,” she said.

You can buy pies on Friday, October 2 from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Lynchburg First Methodist Church located at 65 Mechanic St. Walk-ins are welcome. On Saturday, October 3, they’ll sell at Moorehead Pavilion in Wiseman Park during the Whiskey Runners event. They’ll begin around 8 a.m. and stay until they are sold out. Flavors are apricot-peach, apple, pecan and chocolate and they cost $3.50 each.•

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