Once upon a time, Mother Media convinced all of us little Medians that she could make a pie from green tomatoes that would taste just like apple pie. The whole family loved apple pie, but I am not especially fond of tomatoes unless they're in the form of ketchup or pizza sauce, so I was quite skeptical. Mother assured me that green tomatoes are fruit just as apples are fruit, that they taste a lot different from ripe ones, that she'd made this recipe before and that I should just sit back and prepare to be amazed.
I was amazed, all right. Mother harvested green tomatoes from the garden and set about preparing the pie. The house smelled a little funny while it was baking, but I had already agreed to hold my tongue until after the taste test and so said nothing. At last the pie was cooked, cooled and cut. I gingerly cut away the point of my wedge — the most delicious part of any piece of pie — chewed and swallowed.
"BLEAH!" I said, as politely as I could. It tasted like no apple pie I'd ever encountered. Dad also was undelighted with his slice. This was enough for Sister-san, who at the time was not very culinarily adventurous anyway, and I don't think she even touched hers. Mother thought we were still just giving her a hard time about the unusual recipe until she tried her own piece. Then both pie and recipe disappeared, never to be seen again.
This happened probably 20 years ago, and I'm still not sure what went wrong. Mother didn't have much to say about it at the time, and no one really wanted to push the point. Perhaps one of the cooking steps went awry, or perhaps the tomatoes were a little funky. All I know is, this was the only pie Mother ever made that I didn't absolutely love, so I think it was the tomatoes.
Has anyone else ever made green tomato pie? Or anything else as weird? Tell all!