The world around us, wrapped in glowing lights and tinsel, seemed more innocent the week of Christmas than it did at any other time of the year. We kids, normally wild and raucous most of the times were quite tame by our usual standards, no doubt awaiting the arrival of Santa! Our parents however, were busy making preparations for the big day.

A few days before Christmas the house almost vibrated with the aroma of home made fruitcakes, cookies and pies. Looking back over the years I see that all the work that went into making the most delicious desserts in the world was a labor of love. Today, we don't take the time to make a chocolate pie the way they did back then; everything is quick and easy to make. If we had the time, I'm not sure we would invest it in a chocolate pie. Maybe the world would be a better place if we did.

Finally Christmas day arrived and friends and family came over about mid afternoon for a huge holiday feast. There would be two tables heavily laden with food. Kin folk from each side of the family would congregate in the dining room, kitchen, and living room or just about anywhere they could find a seat.

There were always two tables heavily laden with food. Turkey and dressing with giblet gravy and a huge ham were the centerpieces of our Christmas dinners. Sweet potato casserole, three bean casserole, mashed potatoes, lima beans, okra, corn and all sorts of rolls and cornbread covered the tables. Morsels of other delicacies added exotic flavors such as ambrosia, pickled peaches and deviled eggs.

After we had consumed shameful amounts of food, we were allowed a brief recovery period and then it was the time to get serious about eating. Let the chocolate wars begin!

Each year there was a silent battle going on between my mother and my Aunt Vida as to whose chocolate pie was the best. While mom was a great cook, my vote went to my aunt's chocolate creation. It was creamier, had a double chocolate taste and boasted a merinque as tall as Alabama. It was great! This same controversy happened every year without a winner being definitively declared, for fear that the loser would refuse to bake a pie the next year.

One of the elements in this annual drama was that my Aunt Vida would never give my mother the recipe for her fabulous chocolate pie. She always had the same answer each time. "I don't really have a recipe." she would say, "I just throw a bunch of things into the bowl, stir it up; then I put it in the oven." Whatever she did, there was no equal to her Christmas treat.

I recently asked one of her four daughters if she had her mother's recipe for her chocolate pie. She laughed and said that her mother had never told any of the daughters her recipe. It was probably the only secret she had ever kept from her family; one they all seemed to accept as 'mama's secret'

Getting no satisfaction from her daughter, I went to the source. My aunt, now in her eighties, laughed at my suggestion that she let me in on the secret of her chocolate pie. "Don't tell anyone," she said with a twinkle in her eye," but you can find it on page 302 of this cookbook." She did add that she put a little of this and a little of that in the ingredients but she couldn't remember what they were. It seems that my aunt may have been pulling a small con job on us for all these years.

There is a page 302 in practically any good cookbook. Her recipe may not reside on that page, but it will be somewhere close by. Find yours, add a little bit of this and that and you will have my Aunt Vida's Wonderful Chocolate Pie!

Bob Alexander is well experienced in outdoor cooking, holiday eating and leisure living.
Bob is also the author and owner of this article. Visit his sites at:
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