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BROADWAY, 1998
(available in paperback from Broadway, 1999)
IN A WALK IN THE WOODS, veteran travel writer and humorist Bill Bryson takes to the wilderness, chronicling his attempt to hike from Georgia to Maine on the famed 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail. Bryson’s trail companion is his childhood buddy from Iowa, the underprepared and overfed Stephen Katz. This wry account of their sundry misadventures and the characters they meet is interwoven with the history and geography of the trail. Bryson makes a powerful case for conservation of the American wilderness along the way, too.
Katz shows up for the hike in miserable physical condition, with apparently no clue about the arduous journey ahead. His main provision is Snickers bars. But Bryson isn’t exactly trail-savvy himself, and together they hit the trail with backpacks full of pepperoni sausages, beef jerky, and “imperishable cakes and doughnuts” to round out their trail diet. They quickly learn that “the central feature of life on the Appalachian Trail is deprivation,” a condition that instills an appreciation for such ordinary foods as Coca-Cola and white bread.
Bryson and Katz aren’t out of Georgia before they head off in search of a nearby restaurant to fulfill their “savage lust for food.” Bryson fills up on chicken, black-eyed peas, roast potatoes, “ruterbeggars,” and iced tea, and tops it off with a dessert that makes rare appearances in campsites, the dessert he claims most Appalachian Trail hikers spend hours daydreaming about as they slog on, mile after food-deprived mile. Bryson writes:
Everyone on the trail dreams of something, usually sweet and gooey, and my sustaining vision had been an outsized slab of pie. [The waitress] brought me a vast viscous, canary-yellow wedge of lemon pie. It was a monument to food technology, yellow enough to give you a headache, sweet enough to make your eyeballs roll up into your head—everything, in short, you could want from a pie so long as taste and quality didn’t enter into your requirements.
Our version of lemon meringue pie is everything you could want from a pie, with the addition of great taste and excellent quality. And it won’t give you a headache.
½ recipe Basic Piecrust (see p. 113) 4 eggs, separated 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel 5 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 1½ cups sugar, divided ¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon cornstarch |
1½ cups cold water 2 tablespoons butter ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar ½ teaspoon vanilla extract |
To prebake piecrust: Preheat oven to 425°F. Prick crust with fork all over and bake for 8–10 minutes, until lightly browned. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
Lower oven temperature to 325°F.
To make the filling: Lightly beat the egg yolks to combine, and set aside.
Put the lemon peel and juice together in a bowl, and set aside.
Combine 1 tablespoon cornstarch with 
cup water in a small saucepan and simmer, whisking constantly, until thick. Set aside and allow to cool until ready to prepare meringue.
Combine 1 cup sugar, ¼ cup of cornstarch, the salt, and 1½ cups cold water in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Simmer over medium heat, whisking frequently. When the mixture starts to thicken and turn clear, whisk in the egg yolks, half at a time, whisking vigorously after each addition to prevent eggs from curdling. When the yolks are completely mixed in, add the butter and the lemon peel and juice. Reduce heat to a simmer, whisking constantly. After a minute or so, remove from heat and cover pan to prevent a skin from forming.
To make the meringue: Mix together the remaining ½ cup sugar and the cream of tartar in a bowl and set aside. Using an electric mixer on high speed, beat the egg whites and vanilla for a few seconds until they foam. Add the sugar mixture a large spoonful at a time, continuing to beat. When the mixture forms soft peaks, add the cooled cornstarch and water, a large spoonful at a time, and beat until it forms stiff peaks.
If the filling has cooled significantly while making the meringue, reheat briefly, whisking constantly. Pour the filling into the prebaked pie shell. Top with the meringue, beginning at the outside edge and moving toward the center. Spread the meringue with a scraper or the back of a large spoon and create small peaks across the surface. Make sure the topping is attached to the edge of the piecrust to prevent it from pulling back when baked. Bake until the meringue is golden brown all over, about 20 minutes. Cool to room temperature. Serve the same day.
Yield: One 9-inch pie, 6 to 8 servings
NOVEL THOUGHTS
“Environmentalists have a reputation for being serious and pessimistic—you don’t get a lot of funny books about the environment,” says Kate Moffat, leader of the Sierra Club Book Group of Portland, Maine. Moffat’s club, which reads and discusses books about the environment, chose Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods as the first selection in the group’s Living In and Loving the Woods reading series. The subject was especially appropriate for Maine, one of the most densely forested states in the nation and home of the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, Mount Katahdin. A departure from more serious environmental works the group has read, Bryson’s memoir was a huge hit. “We soaked up this book,” says Moffat.
The Sierra Club Book Group loved Bryson’s version of “healthy” trail food: “The idea of packing Snickers and junk food had us roaring—that stuff won’t last you a mile. That the food was an afterthought was hysterical! I would encourage anyone hiking the Appalachian Trail or going into the wilderness to read this book,” says Moffat.
Members of the Sierra Club Book Group especially enjoyed Bryson’s account of hiking the Hundred Mile Wilderness, a section of the Appalachian Trail in Maine that many consider to be the most rugged and challenging part of the entire trail. Though they hail from Maine, most in the club “had never been to the Hundred Mile Wilderness and wanted to hear what it was like,” says Moffat.
Bill Bryson and Stephen Katz’s food choices for the trip have given many book clubs quick ideas for meeting snacks. The South Florida PTA Book Club discussed A Walk in the Woods for their annual Couples Night, when husbands are invited to a potluck and discussion. To bring them closer to the trail, the dinner menu featured venison stew, trail mix, and candy bars. Member Holly Evans set the mood for her guests, decorating the front porch of her home with a camping cook pot and a walking stick.
The Book Bags of New Prague, Minnesota, had a hobo dinner when they discussed A Walk in the Woods, with hamburgers, potatoes, and carrots cooked in the oven. They recorded their impressions in nature journals while they ate Snickers bars, gorp (a trail mix of dried fruit and nuts), and Little Debbie cakes, favorites of Bryson and Katz.
teaspoon salt