Winter is the time to relish a warm pie of some kind for dessert. Peach, apple, blueberry – or gramma! Gramma pie is an old-fashioned recipe that some people may never have heard of. Like many of the old-style recipes, it has been superseded by newer trends in cooking. However, if you’ve never tasted gramma pie you are in for a treat.

There are different types of gramma available in most supermarkets and restaurant. Often you’ll see the big round one that looks something like a pumpkin only it is lighter in colour and sometimes has paler splotches of colour on the skin.  You can easily make a gramma pie out of this, but if you can get the trombone gramma it is even better. This gramma is shaped after its namesake, with a long neck that sometimes curls around a bit. On smaller grammas, the neck remains straight.

If you’ve ever tried to cut a whole pumpkin, you might think cutting up a gramma would be hard work. It’s not; the gramma skin and flesh is very soft compared to pumpkin. You can even cut it with a short vegetable knife, though a long one is fine too. If you buy a whole gramma, cut off the neck and start with that. It will usually be enough for one pie, because there are no seeds in the neck; it is all solid flesh.

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