Vintage Graham Cracker Cream Pie

Old-Fashioned Coconut Cream Pie

Preserving history is important. With this graham cracker cream pie, I'm giving tastes of growing up in those Appalachian mountains. Delicious, for sure!

Keeping history alive through food is one of my passions. Nothing thrills me more than to have someone share with me a cherished recipe from their family heritage. I'll usually make that recipe, like these pie crust cookies. Oh, the sweet story behind these cookies. And, it all starts with Sarah, a childhood friend from my growing up in West Virginia.

Coconut Pie Recipe

Sarah PM'd me on Facebook and asked if I remember Miss Opal. Now, Miss Opal and her husband, Talmadge, were lifelong residents of our small Appalachian town and our families were all intertwined in this small mountain community. Sarah said she wished she'd gotten Miss Opal's recipe before she passed away in her early 90s.

It was her very favorite. Knowing that memories are connected emotionally to food, and knowing that Sarah had these warm special memories, I set about trying to recreate this pie and a recipe for Sarah.

Custard Pies

Custard pies have a way of bringing old friends together, especially with today's social media. Fast forward now some decades later and both Sarah and I are grown, both grandmothers and we still are friends, virtually seeing each other daily on Facebook.

One day Sarah asked me if I'd ever tasted Miss Opal's creme pie with a graham cracker crust. I hadn't, so I set about asking Sarah about what made it so delicious. Of course, I probed and questioned, and Sarah described and explained. She insisted that it was a graham cracker crust no bake pie.

Graham Cracker Crust Pie

I love it when someone tells me about something that they loved eating as a child, growing up, the memories it would evoke. That's how this graham cracker crust pie came about. Growing up in West Virginia, we had dear neighbors, the Burgess family.

There were two children, Sarah, who was about six years younger than me, and her brother, Gilman, who was maybe ten years younger. I remember when Gilman was born. He was like our real live baby doll that we would play with! I would spend hours in Sarah and Gilman's kitchen watching Miss Lulah cook, and I learned so much from her!

Graham Cracker Crust No Bake

I'm not sure if this pie is what Sarah's palate memories are, but I can assuredly say that this pie is one of my family's favorites. I decided to add toasted coconut to it and make the pie crust, with a graham cracker base, more substantial and with more texture.

This pie is refrigerated and is simply divine. Creamy. Crunchy. It's like eating a slice of a life long gone. My dear West Virginia home.

Yes, the past. When days were longer, people waved at each other as they drove down the street, kids walked to school, rode their bikes, doors were left unlocked and everyone knew you name and your family.

Pre-Made Graham Cracker Crust

You can save some steps in making this pie by using a pre-made graham cracker crust. But, you'll be missing some of the elements of cooking way back when in the 1950s and 1960s when we truly did most everything from scratch.