Dear Thomas Jefferson,

What is your favorite pie?

I hear that you loved the biscuits that were made in the bakery at Monticello, but I can’t figure out what kind of pie you liked.

Everyone says that you fell in love with ice cream when you were in France.  We still have a recipe in your handwriting for vanilla ice cream.  It calls for two bottles of good cream, six egg yolks, and one half pound of sugar.  I am curious about the good cream.  How do you figure out which cream is good and which is bad?  Also, how big were those bottles? 

I see that you served ice cream at the White House.  One man wrote that you served him frozen material in a warm pastry.  Please help me understand what the dessert was that night.  The description does not sound delicious.

Today, I am thinking about pie.  Once I interviewed a person for a job, and she said that she sees pie as a metaphor for life.  She saw sweetness, diversity, choice, variety, and even democracy in pie. 

People say that something can be as American as apple pie.  What do you think that means? 

The first apple seeds came to the colonies with the Puritans.  I read that you were an apple enthusiast and maintained an apple orchard at Monticello.  Did you like apple pie?

Just like that woman I interviewed for a teaching job, many people see the world as a pie.  They see the opportunities in this country as a pie.  They see success as a pie.  They see education as a pie.  They see seats in college like a pie.  They think that most things can be cut into wedges like a pie.  Some people will get a piece, but there isn’t enough to go around for everyone.  If you get there too late, and it is all gone, then that is the fault of the person who moved too slowly or was in the wrong place when the pie was being served.  What happens if you live in a place where no one ever announces that pie is being served?

I don’t like the idea that this country is a pie.  I think it is a negative way to look at democracy.  When I think of scarcity and abundance, I almost always like to choose abundance.  I think that there is enough to go around if we all work together, especially if we are all committed to the common good.

Let’s get together for pie a-la-mode .  We can talk about pie, democracy, and the common good.

Sincerely,

Katy Dalgleish