Submitted by Sue Stangland, Oregon
Who would have thought hot chicken pie would become a treasured family Christmas tradition! But it has been for our family since the late 1800s. My great-grandmother wanted to give her family a special Christmas morning surprise after they returned from the chilly pre-dawn chores necessary to keep their small New Hampshire farm functioning. She prepared a heartier-than-usual breakfast for this special holiday and it became an annual tradition that not even two world wars or one Great Depression could interrupt.
I can only imagine how time-consuming making a chicken pie in the late 1800s would be. Actually slaughtering the chickens and hauling the water to boil the meat to create the broth is not something I would know how to do, nor would I wish to. After all, we have grocery stores where segmented chicken parts are already dismembered and even skinned, running water through modern plumbing, and stoves that don’t require wood to keep them heated to the proper temperature….