The Perfect Sweet Potato Pie

Okay . . . so, here we go. The holidays. "Tis the season" . . . yada, yada, yada . . . blah, blah, blah and past the sweet potato pie.

In my home, it is sweet potato pie. I know many folks love their pumpkin pie, but, I'm from Louisiana and I think there may be a law against pumpkin pies within a 120 mile radius of New Orleans city limits.

With that said, if you have never had sweet potato pie or are trying to find a really good recipe for one, brace yourself, here we go.

Now, you are reading and thinking, "Why so many words. Where the heck are the ingredients?" Well, southern folk will tell stories about crickets so you know I got a story about the pie. As a matter of fact, you're going to have to read the narrative for the recipe. Or, you can just cheat and skip ahead for the ingredients. But, you'll lose something in the translation and it won't be as good as you really need it to be.

Throughout the decades I have heard stories of sweet potato pies being so good they would make you want to slap your mama. No one should make anything that good because slapping your mother is morally reprehensible. Staring her up and down and sucking your teeth is something totally different and it won't get you slapped back. But, I think the best sweet potato pie ever baked came out of the kitchen of a lady named Malaak. You see Malaak is Chris Rock's wife. He told Oprah that her sweet potato pie is what got him to propose. I truly hope Chris and I are talking about the same thing. Otherwise, disregard that reference.

Okay, the pie. Now, I watched my Mama Bert make hundreds of sweet potato pies during my childhood. She was from the old school of pie making. You got something to mix the potatoes, milk, eggs, sugar, baking powder and a dash of salt in. It was mixed with your hands and the strings from the sweet potatoes were pulled out - - one by one. There were no mixing bowls laid out with pre-measured ingredients. Mama Bert (and all women I knew from that era) relied on love and good taste buds to make a sweet potato pie sang. YES, sang!!! I'm using ebonics and old folk lingo - - pay attention!!!