Survey

[harimad]

1. If your host served you pie, would you want/need to know that the crust included a very small amount of alcohol? (Yes/No)

2. Do you know someone who would want/need to know that the crust included a very small amount of alcohol? (Yes/No)

(I encourage you to pass this question on and report back.)

Comments

[brashley46]

I don't care either way, myself. Just so it tastes good.

But I do know a few Mormons, Muslims, and Baptists who have a religious prohibition on alcohol. I would not serve the Muslims pork either, and I'd make sure the pie crust dough, if baked, was made with vegetable shortening rather than lard. (That goes double for my Jewish relatives-by-marriage, although I'm sure they would not mind the alcohol.)

[harimad]

I'm sure baking is high enough temp, the questions are whether the pie is in long enough for alcohol to bake off and if it can escape from a bottom crust. See SRAUN's LJ (link below) for more posts on the science.

I know that a vegetarian would tell me so if I invited zir to dinner. Probably same for someone with severe allergies - i.e., someone who wanted me to take that into account. I guess the question is, would a stringent non-drinker? There's no taste or smell of alcohol from the pie so ze couldn't tell that way.

[reesei]

(1) No
(2) Yes - I had a roommate in graduate school who was allergic to alcohol. Very small amounts wouldn't necessarily hurt him, but he would have wanted to know to make an informed choice - alcohol is not an expected ingredient in pie crusts!

[vixmix]

1. No
2. Yes - see comments from the slackmistress, above. Wine cooked off in a nice beef stew, no problem. Liqueur in the mousse or rum in the cookies, big problem.

[harimad]

Wine cooked off in a nice beef stew
Well, maybe it does cook off, maybe it doesn't. SRAUN posted this survey in his LJ and his respondents are posting about the science. http://sraun.livejournal.com/376546.html

[sraun]

I'm not certain why I just remembered this - have you ever heard the origin of Welch's grape juice? (It's also 'why do Methodists serve grape juice instead of wine at communion'.)

[harimad]

No - do tell!

[sraun]

The story (which some quick research leads me to believe has at least some urban myth elements) is that there was an on-the-wagon alcoholic who went to a Methodist church in the late 1800's. One day he took communion, and the alcohol in the wine led to him falling off the wagon, and dying of immediately related causes. This led a dentist to develop a pure grape juice, which he offered free/cheap to the local church to use for communion.

According to the Welch's corporate web-site, the invention was prohibition related - but actually 'why are we preaching against the evils of drink and serving alcohol?' And then none of the churches around him adopted it at the time - substituting grape juice for wine in communion was held to be potentially heretical. The grape juice didn't actually take off in the inventor's generation - however, his son was able to make a thriving business out of it.