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Coconut Cream Pie
blargskull
Member Posts: 98 Arc User
I was up late watching ST Voyager on Netflix and could not help thinking of Gilligan's Island reruns and how Mary Ann would make Coconut Cream Pie for Gilligan... then my brain paused and I began asking. Where did she get all the ingredients?
Typical Pie Recipe
1 cup Coconut, shredded ---> A lot of work but can be done.
3 Egg Yolks ---> Seagull eggs?
Dash of Salt ---> Maybe a bag on the Minow?
3/4 cup Sugar ---> There are two major sources sugar cane and sugar beets both require massive amounts and a lot of boiling. More work than the whole pie.
3 cups Milk ---> eh? Where is the cow? Heck I would settle for a goat.
2 tbsp. Butter --> see cow level
1/2 cup Cornstarch --> now we have a cornfield?
1/2 tsp. Vanilla extract ---? Maybe she skipped this??
Meringue:
3 Egg Whites ---> More angry birds
1/4 tsp. Cream of Tartar ---> I am completely stumped on this one.
6 Tbsp. Sugar ---> see above
1 baked 9-in. Pie shell or 1 graham cracker crumb ready made pie shell ---> What?
Pie shells require flour so now you need a wheat field next to the corn field. Not to mention all the pie tins you see on the show. Did Skipper have a set of hubcaps on the Minnow?
As many pies that girl made for Gilligan I hope she got more work out of him than what it showed in the series. A single pie would have been several days worth of collecting and processing before she even started to make the actual pie.
Typical Pie Recipe
1 cup Coconut, shredded ---> A lot of work but can be done.
3 Egg Yolks ---> Seagull eggs?
Dash of Salt ---> Maybe a bag on the Minow?
3/4 cup Sugar ---> There are two major sources sugar cane and sugar beets both require massive amounts and a lot of boiling. More work than the whole pie.
3 cups Milk ---> eh? Where is the cow? Heck I would settle for a goat.
2 tbsp. Butter --> see cow level
1/2 cup Cornstarch --> now we have a cornfield?
1/2 tsp. Vanilla extract ---? Maybe she skipped this??
Meringue:
3 Egg Whites ---> More angry birds
1/4 tsp. Cream of Tartar ---> I am completely stumped on this one.
6 Tbsp. Sugar ---> see above
1 baked 9-in. Pie shell or 1 graham cracker crumb ready made pie shell ---> What?
Pie shells require flour so now you need a wheat field next to the corn field. Not to mention all the pie tins you see on the show. Did Skipper have a set of hubcaps on the Minnow?
As many pies that girl made for Gilligan I hope she got more work out of him than what it showed in the series. A single pie would have been several days worth of collecting and processing before she even started to make the actual pie.
Post edited by blargskull on
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Comments
I haven't a clue on most of the ingredients, though. Based on the flora and (lack of) fauna seen in the episodes, the castaways should have been dead of various vitamin deficiencies inside a year.
But there is no cow level.
Coconut Milk
Coconut Butter
As to a starch - palm or palmetto trees. I've seen film footage of island natives (New Guinea?) that pulverize the hearts of such trees for the starch, which they make into a paste that looks like Hawaiian poi. They use it as a staple food source supplemented with fish.
Vanilla extract - at least for a while, this might come from a bottle in the SS Minnow's galley, assuming the ship was Skipper's home.
I suppose the galley might have Cream of Tartar as well, but I'd no idea what Tartar was, nor how to cream it, so I googled it. "A white, crystalline, acidic compound obtained as a byproduct of wine fermentation". Ok, that suggests possibilities. With a Professor capable of making anything except a bamboo raft, a fruit fermentation process could be set up using pineapple, which I seem to recall the island having.
The boat(s) shown in the opening and on the beach are two different makes and models. But my father lived on my grandpa's 30 foot Owens to which he informs me was the equal of a sea going Winnebago. There was a mini fridge a small camper stove a V bunk in the bow and held 55 gallons of gas which got you about 3 mile per gallon so the range (unless they drifted) would be no more than 150 to 200 miles. So the stores aboard the Minnow would be very limited.
The boat in on the beach is a Pacemaker with a flying bridge. If it had twin screws then you have 2 engines for even less mileage. My father said that since most of the damage was above the waterline the boat could have been repaired with the wood from the top and decking. These boats are held together with wood screws and anyone who can turn a screwdriver can fix the boat. If the skipper was so stupid to bring a hammer (as seen on TV) and NOT a screwdriver, then they should have BBQ him on the spot. Meanwhile the professor could make a lie detector out of coconuts (the miracle fruit) but couldn't patch a 3 foot hole in a boat.
Back to the Pies because the cake is a lie.
She most often made coconut but on occasion she would make banana cream. Several sites give you "Mary Ann's Coconut Cream Pie" even Amazon sells; a cook book by Dawn Wells.
From page 217 of this book she wrote;
Which looks exactly like the common recipe I already posted. There must have been a corner shop on that island.